86 The Scottish Naturalist, 



occupied by the sea. How long that river had flowed, and how 

 deep it had cut its valley we do not know ; but at length from one 

 of these lesser craters, probably situated upon the wasted remains 

 of the volcano of Rum, torrents of lava were poured into the 

 river valley, filling it up and burying its bed under many hundreds 

 of feet of black glassy rock. If we ask "Where is now the wooded 

 land through which that ancient river flowed ? Where are the 

 hills that formed the sides of its valley ? " The only answer that 

 science can give us is — "The winter's cold, the summer's heat, the 

 ice, the rain, and the tempest have wasted them away." 



Such then is the history of the remarkable island as told by its 

 rocks ; and there exist few if any more impressive records of the 

 terrestrial changes produced by the unobtrusive but unresting 

 action of the forces of denudation than Eigg and its Scuir. In 

 the words of Dr. Geikie " subterranean movements may be called 

 in to account for narrow gorges or deep glens or profound sea- 

 lochs ; but no subterranean movement will ever explain the history 

 of the Scuir of Eigg, which will remain as striking a memorial of 

 denudation as it is a landmark amid the scenery of our wild 

 western shores." 



THE REPTILIFEROUS SANDSTONES OP ELGXNSHIKE, &c. 



AT the first Aberdeen meeting of the British Association 

 (1859), the question arose as to the geological age of these 

 Sandstones. While " stratiography " led to the supposition that 

 they were the upper beds of the Old Red, paleontology seemed to 

 fix them in the Triassic formation. The Association will meet a 

 second time in the " Granite city," ere this que&tio vexata be settled 

 to general satisfaction. During the quarter of a century that has 

 elapsed between the two meetings, not a few remains, both of 

 Holoptt/chius and of reptiles, have been gathered from the white 

 sandstones in the neighbourhood of Elgin ; so close have they 

 been found to lie to each other that both have been found in the 

 same quarry, although not in the same bed or stratum. 



The untold geological ages, during which the whole Carboni- 

 ferous and Permian systems were being deposited, make one 

 expect to see a marked line of demarcation between the two. No 

 such broad unmistakable line has yet been detected. There are a 



