I IQ 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



the fir plantation on the right of the bay of Millport, 

 and wind up by its fungi-haunted shades, where an 

 insensible and circuitous ascent brings the excur- 

 sionist to a coxcomb-like ridge that forms the highest 

 pinnacle of the island. Here now is a pleasant nook, 

 where, sheltered by this great stone, we may sit and 

 meditate over the fine prospect of the Firth of Clyde, 

 with the homeward bound sails making up at our 

 feet ; telling the luxurious hours by the creep of the 

 shadows, and swallow-like flitting of the steamers from 

 bay and headland. But mark, beside our heathery 

 couch lie vast sheets of our old red sandstone, up- 

 lifted in air and bent into folds by a force greater than 

 that of a hydraulic press ; and here, hard by, see 

 concealed dark congealed flows of lava, the slag of 

 the extinct furnace that raised them. Around us are 

 several tarns or ponds of water, that might possibly 

 mark the sites of extinct craters, or, at least, in my 

 case, I must confess a reverie of this nature arose, on 



the nut bushes, and yet another of these dykes (/' in 

 diagram) even more grotesque and strange. Here 

 we are confronted by the startling effigy of a gaunt 

 prowling lion, which like the mutilated sandstone 

 cock of Arrau and the figures in the Kyles, seems to 

 have emerged from the Noah's ark of wonderland. 

 Story-reading youth is ever credulously prone to 

 associate the lonely caves and ruins of the sea clifif 

 with the unarticulated sighs and moans of the sea 

 and winds ; and I know at least one timid inhabitant, 

 who averred she could never pass this rock, half 

 crocodile, half lion, when the moon was at its full, 

 it was indeed then so dreadful. 



Freed from all their hazy association with wild 

 dragons and Norse battles, can these dykes, in the 

 eye of the geologist, be less fraught with terror, com- 

 manding awe and reverence ? Here, indeed, we witness 

 the relics of no glowing lava-stream flowing from 

 vent or crater, but we mark ever yawning rents in the 



Fig. 82 — Whin Dykes, Greater Cumbrae. a. Wall-like dyke, l, Lion-dyke, c, Old Red Conglomerate, faulted at a. 



d. Old Red Sandstone. A, Raised shore-line. 



chancing to pick up a rounded mass of sandy iron- 

 stone, such as it occurred to me might have been 

 thrown up from one during an irruption. 



But we will redescend to the shore line in order to 

 properly acquaint ourselves with the rage and terror 

 of this conflagration. Eastward from the town of 

 Millport, and past the fir-wood, there lies a pleasant 

 stroll along the shore to where a turn at the point 

 brings the ivied castle of Fairlie in view. If my 

 memory deceives me not, nowhere have I seen the 

 wild hyacinth growing thicker in spring or enamelling 

 the woods, as it does over on yonder slope. But 

 stay, right in front of us, behold a grim black dyke 

 (indicated by a in our diagram), springing from the 

 sea like a huge iron wall, and running up along the 

 hillside, far as eye can reach ; elevated as by Titanic 

 hands above the surface of the still unharvested oat- 

 fields. Proceeding a few paces, and passing some 

 children who are picking sour blackberries among 



uplifted or faulted ground, up which a pitchy flood 

 has welled from the realms of Pluto. To the removal 

 of the softer sandstone on either side, the wall-like 

 appearance of the lava is due ; and this must have 

 been accomplished when the island was dipped 

 deeper in the current, and the action of waves and 

 frosts chiselled out around it a smooth rim (A in 

 diagram), now traversed daily by the sightseer's 

 coach. But also learn the pride of little mortals, the 

 Liliputians of to-day : it was, if you please, the corpo- 

 ration of Millport that made this road. Besides their 

 wall-like form, the even breadth of these twin dykes 

 is not a little curious ; for, as meted one day with my 

 umbrella, I found the first throughout its length 

 measured uniformly eight and a half feet, and the 

 second thirteen feet — an anomaly, I concluded, should 

 be attributed to the even pressure of the lava upwards 

 rather than to the force of the earthquake shock. 

 The little Cumbrae lies a good stiff row from the 



