12 Notes on the Natural Hrstory of Lochfynehead.  [Sess. 
IlL—NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 
LOCHFY NEHEAD. 
By Mr A. B. STEELE. 
(Read Nov. 23, 1898.) 
THE picturesque scenery round the head of Lochfyne fre- 
quently induces the lover of Nature to sojourn at the 
village inn of Cairndow, close to the quaint parish church 
of Kilmorich, and overlooking the loch from its southern 
shore. The general appearance of the country is moun- 
tainous, presenting great diversity of form. Mountains of 
mica-schist and chlorite-schist rise almost perpendicularly 
from each side of the loch upward to a height of 2000 
feet, their sloping sides clothed with heath and verdure. 
Around their base are grouped ridges of naked rock, or 
low and gentle hillocks covered with trees and a rich 
undergrowth of brushwood. The district generally is com- 
posed of mica-schist, intersected by porphyry, traversed by 
basalt dykes, and locally interspersed with limestone, chlorite- 
schist, and diorite. The more quartzose rock forms the hill- 
tops, and the less quartzose and therefore softer rock the 
valleys, and frequently abounds with garnets and felspar. 
Cylindrical rods penetrate through the whole substance of 
the quartzose rocks, and the present Duke of Argyll, who 
is a well-known geologist, interested himself some years ago 
in trying to discover the origin of these rod-like bodies. 
Geologists ascribed them to mineral concretions, such as 
pyrites or clay balls drawn out into ovate and linear forms 
by the effect of shearing or movements of the strata over each 
other. The Duke was not satisfied with this solution, and 
sent specimens to the British Museum, when they were de- 
clared to be the tubes or burrows of worms similar in their 
nature and origin to those which had long been familiar in 
the same rock as it occurred in Ross and Sutherland. The 
dispute, however, between his Grace and other geologists 
about the origin of mountains in Scotland cannot be so readily 
settled. The latter hold that there are no true mountain- 
ranges in Scotland at all. The so-called ranges, they aver, 
