94 Professor E. Forbes on the Oolite in Skye. 



Purbeeks now in course of preparation, I should examine the 

 Loch Staffin fossils, and, if possible, personally inspect their 

 locality. This I felt to be the more necessary, since I had 

 been told by Sir Roderick Murchison that the fossils in 

 question were taken from loose blocks of stone, the exact 

 position of which in situ, had not been seen. 



Many of the Hebridean localities are so out of the way of 

 travelling that it is by no means easy to visit them. Loch 

 Staffin and Loch Laigh (the latter in the neighbourhood of 

 the Duke of Argyll's leaf-beds) were of this kind. But all 

 difficulty was removed by a proposal from my excellent friend 

 Mr MacAndrew to accompany him on a cruise in his yacht 

 to Mull and Skye, and so examine at our leisure the desired 

 places. Accompanied by Professor Goodsir of Edinburgh, 

 accordingly we set sail, and in the course of three weeks' 

 cruise had not only the good fortune to see the geological 

 points in question, but also to add not a few fossils and nearly 

 twenty species of living animals to the British fauna. 



The peninsula of Trotternish, which forms the north- 

 western portion of the island of Skye, presents on its north- 

 ern line of sea-coast a range of magnificent cliff^s, extending 

 from Portree to Loch Staffin. The crest of these clifi^s is 

 composed of a vast bed of imperfectly columnar trap, resting 

 on oolitic sandstones, limestones, and shales, the uppermost 

 of which were determined by Sir Roderick Murchison to be 

 the equivalents of the cornbrash and forest marble. Be- 

 neath these we find unquestionable representatives of the 

 middle and inferior oolitic strata, and at the base of all un- 

 doubted lias. They abound in fossils, and, whenever the 

 palaeontology of the secondary rocks of Scotland shall be 

 scientifically explored, will affi)rd a rich harvest of beautiful 

 and probably undescribed forms of invertebrata to the natu- 

 ralist who may have the good fortune to undertake the work- 

 Through the oolitic strata are seen rising dykes of green- 

 stone in communication with the spread of trap above, and 

 other trap dykes are seen which not only burst through the 

 greenstone, but also through the sheet of trap forming the 

 perpendicular wall on the summit of the cliffs. 



