THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 195 
a few of its more striking and characteristic scenes, as ex- 
hibited in various localities, and by different deposits, begin- 
ning first with its conglomerate base. 
The great antiquity of this deposit is unequivocally indi- 
cated by the manner in which we find it capping, far in the 
interior, in insulated beds and patches, some of our loftier 
hills, or, in some instances, wrapping them round, as with a 
caul, from base to summit. It mixes largely, in our northern 
districts, with the mountain scenery of the country, and im- 
parts strength and boldness of outline to every landscape in 
which it occurs. Its island-like patches affect generally a 
bluff parabolic or conical outline; its loftier hills present 
rounded, dome-like summits, which sink to the plain on the 
one hand in steep, slightly concave lines, and on the other in 
lines decidedly convex, and a little less steep. The moun- 
tain of boldest outline in the line of the Caledonian Valley 
(Mealforvony) is composed externally of this rock. Except 
where covered by the diluvium, it seems little friendly to 
vegetation. Its higher summits are well nigh as bare as 
those of the primary rocks; and when a public road crosses 
its lower ridges, the traveller generally finds that there is no 
paving process necessary to procure a hardened surtace, for 
his wheels rattle over the pebbles embedded in the rock. On 
the sea-coast, in several localities, the deposit presents strik- 
ing peculiarities of outline. The bluff and rounded preci- 
pices stand out in vast masses, that affect the mural form, and 
present few of the minuter angularities of the primary rocks. 
Here and there a square buttress of huge proportions leans 
against the front of some low-browed crag, that seems little 
to need any such support, and casts a length of shadow 
athwart its face. There opens along the base of the rock a 
line of rounded, shallow caves, or what seem rather the open- 
