AND QUARTZ DEPOSITS OF ASSYNT. 3090 
hills of the country,—such as Glasveen, Ben-Uie, and Ben- 
more. Even where most indurated, it is everywhere, like the 
resembling bed which underlies the limestone, purely mechan- 
ical in its structure,— an indurated, indestructible sandstone, 
in short ; and how very indurated and indestructible it is, the 
gray and hoary nakedness of the massive eminences composed 
of it serves very conclusively to show. It never resolves into 
soil: the only tracts of soil which occur over it are of a peaty 
character, formed simply through the agency of water, and of 
that low vegetation which, in a weeping climate, water can of 
itself sustain. Where the hill-sides, formed of this deposit, 
rise steeply, they admit of no covering at all,—not even of a 
crust of moss or of lichen; and their summits gleam white and 
bright to the summer sun, as if overlaid by a continuous layer 
of snow. I may add that, from its great durability, it bears 
with singular distinctness, in this region, marks of the old gla- 
cial action. High above the sorely weathered limestones, that 
retain not a trace on their surface save of the recent storms 
that last washed them, we find the white quartz rock still as 
smoothly polished, as distinctly grooved, as sharply lined and 
furrowed, as if the great ice-river which produced the phenom- 
ena had grated over them but yesterday. This upper deposit 
of quartz enters largely into the composition of some of the 
wildest and most desolate scenery of Assynt. In looking up 
the dark narrow lake which takes its name from the district, 
we see the broad bases and naked storm-riven summits of 
Benmore and the neighboring mountain Glasveen, forming the 
back-ground of the landscape. The ancient castle of Ardvyo- 
rack, and the old mansion-house of Eddrachalda,—both broken 
and roofless ruins, situated within a few hundred yards of 
each other,— the one shattered by lightning, the other scathed 
by fire,— comprise, from one interesting point of view, the 
only human dwellings visible in the prospect: solitude broods 
