388 THE FOSSILIFEROUS 
the curious fresh-water or estuary deposit of Loch Staffin, des- 
cribed in the “ Geological Journal” for 1851, by the late Pro- 
fessor Edward Forbes. ‘There is a patch of Lias on the shores 
of Loch Aline, exceedingly rich in some of the characteristic 
organisms of the formation, which I would fain have examined 
with some care, but wanted the necessary opportunity. From 
deposits partially overflown by the Trap of Mull, and which 
crop out along the eastern shores of that Island, I have exhumed 
specimens that bear in the group an Oolitic aspect; and in 
spending a few hours in the Island of Pabba, when the yacht, 
my home for the time, was cruising in the offing, I found in it 
such promise of a rich fossil harvest, that when a young friend, 
—Mr. Archibald Geikie,—requested me last year to point 
out to him some one or two centres from which I thought he 
might best acquaint himself with our Scottish Lias of the west- 
ern coast, 1 ventured to recommend the latter island, and the 
southern portion of the neighboring Bay of Broadford, as two 
of the most promising. Mr. Geikie,—in whom our Society 
may, I trust, recognize a future member, — found his way to 
Pabba, — introduced himself to the sole family resident on the 
island, — slept, I believe, in a barn,— lived on potatoes and 
milk, —and brought away with him an interesting suite of fos- 
sils. And after this manner must the Hebrides,and the Western 
Highlands be explored. ‘The Oolitic beds of the eastern coast 
are considerably more accessible than those of the west. The 
Lias of Eathie, near Cromarty, is one of the richest deposits 
in animal remains which I have anywhere seen; and it has 
yielded several unique fossils, — such as the broad-spiked leaf- 
lets of some ancient tree attached to a stem of a twelvemonth’s 
growth, that yields to the microscope, in a prepared section, the 
a well-marked 
coniferous tissue, — cones of unique structure, 
frond of Zamia of an undescribed species, — numerous am- 
monites in a fine state of preservation, —and one of the com- 
