CHAPTER X. 
Speculations in the Old Red Sandstone, and their Character.— 
George, first Earl of Cromarty. — His Sagacity as a Naturalist at 
fault in one Instance. — Sets himself to dig for Coal in the Lower 
Old Red Sandstone. — Discovers a fine Artesian Well. — Value of 
Geological Knowledge in an economic View. — Scarce a Secondary 
Formation in the Kingdom in which Coal has not been sought for. 
— Mineral Springs of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. — Strathpef- 
fer.—Its Peculiarities whence derived. — Chalybeate Springs of 
Easter Ross and the Black Isle. — Petrifying Springs. — Building- 
Stone and Lime of the Old Red Sandstone. — Its various Soils. 
Tuere has been much money lost, and a good deal won, 
in speculations connected with the Old Red Sandstone. The 
speculations in which money has been won have consorted, 
if I may so speak, with the character of the system, and 
those in which money has been lost have not. Instead, how- 
ever, of producing a formal chapter on the economic uses 
to which its various deposits have been applied, or the unfor- 
tunate undertakings which an acquaintance with its geology 
would have prevented, I shall throw together, as they occur 
to me, a few simple facts illustrative of both. 
George, first Earl of Cromarty, seems, like his namesake 
and contemporary, the too celebrated Sir George M’Kenzie, 
of Roseavoch, to have been a man of an eminently active 
and inquiring mind. He found leisure, in the course of a 
very busy life, to write several historical dissertations of great 
research, and a very elaborate Synopsis Apocalyptica. Hes 
the author, too, of an exceedingly curious letter on the “* Sec- 
ond Sight,” addressed to the philosophic Boyle, which con- 
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