100 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
It bisects; and hence the peculiar shape of that tongue of 
land which forms the lower portion of the Black Isle, and 
which, washed by the Moray Frith on the one side, and by the 
Frith of Cromarty on the other, has its apex occupied by the 
Southern Sutor. Imagine a lofty promontory somewhat re- 
sembling a huge spear thrust horizontally into the sea—a 
ponderous mass of granitic gneiss, of about a mile in length, 
forming the head, and a rectilinear line of the Old Red Sand- 
stone, more than ten miles in length, forming the shaft; and 
such is the appearance which this tongue of land presents, 
when viewed from its north-western boundary, the Cromarty 
Frith. When viewed from the Moray Frith, — its south-west- 
ern boundary,—we see the same granitic spear-head, but 
find the line of the shaft knobbed by the other granitic 
eminences of the chain. 
Now on this tongue of land I first broke ground as a geolo- 
gist. The quarry described in my introductory chapter, as 
that in which my notice was first attracted by the ripple mark- 
ings, opens on the Cromarty Frith side of this huge spear- 
shaft ; the quarry to which I removed immediately after, and 
beside which I found the fossils of the Lias, opens on its 
Moray Frith side. The uptilted section of sandstone occurs 
on both sides, where the shaft joins to the granitic spear-head, 
but the Lias I found on the Moray Frith side alone. It studs 
the coast in detached patches, sorely worn by the incessant 
lashings of the Frith ; and each patch bears an evident rela- 
tion, in the place it occupies, to a corresponding knob or 
wedge in the granitic line. ‘The Northern Sutor, as has been 
just said, is one of these knobs or wedges. It has its accom- 
panying patch of Lias upheaved at its base, and lying uncon- 
formably, not only to its granitic strata, but also to its subordi- 
nate sandstones. The Southern Sutor, another of these knobs, 
