ROCKS OF SCOTLAND. 323 
detected no longer. “It strikes one as a melancholy reflec- 
tion,” we find him saying, “ when leaving this deserted quarry, 
where the wild whistle of the mountain sheep shows how 
seldom their solitude is invaded, that these relics of former 
creations, which, if preserved to science, might have added 
an interesting page to the world’s history, should have thus 
perished by the hand of man at so recent a period, after hay- 
ing remained safely stored up in the cabinet of nature for so 
many ages, and throughout so many awful revolutions.” I 
may here add, however, that shells have since been detected 
in the limestones of the Wrae Hill, both by Mr. Nicol him- 
self, and by Mr. Robert Chambers, and the discovery of Sir 
James fully verified. In 1842, one of the members of our 
Royal Physical Society, Mr. William Rhind, published his 
brief but interesting treatise on the “Geology of Scotland.” 
And in referring, in a general notice, to our Grauwacke de- 
posits, we find him stating, that the “formation” to which 
they belong “ corresponds to some of the beds of the Cambrian 
”? 
system, as existing in Wales ;” and that in graptolites discov- 
ered in the Grauwacke slates of Innerleithen, “the first in- 
dications of organized fossils appear.” He adds, that “ dis- 
tinct specimens of these lay before him as he wrote, which 
had been presented to him by the discoverer, Mr. James 
Nicol.” In 1845, Mr. Nicol published his “Guide to the 
Geology of Scotland,’—a work which I have ever since 
carried about with me in my geologic rambles, and which, 
in every instance in which its author has described from his 
own observations, I have found correct. In this useful work 
we find him again referring to the graptolites of Grierston and 
the shells of Wrae Hill; and, further, briefly intimating yet 
another Grauwacke locality rich in fossils, though he was evi- 
dently in doubt regarding its true place in the scale. “In 
a limestone below the coal near Girvan,” he remarks, “ Silu- 
