1814-1840 SCENES IN ARRAN 25 



The lake returned in chastened gleam 

 The purple cloud, the golden beam ; 

 Reflected in the crystal pool, 

 Headland and bank lay fair and cool ; 

 The weather-tinted rock and tower, 

 Each drooping tree, each fairy flower, 

 So true, so soft, the mirror gave, 

 As if there lay beneath the wave, 

 Secure from trouble, toil, and care, 

 A world than earthly world more fair. 



* But it is in a cold February evening that the 

 pleasant solitude of the place will be most esteemed. 

 There, seated at a blazing peat-fire, as the geologist 

 extends his notes or arranges his specimens after his 

 day's work, he will hear the piercing wind whistling 

 down Glen Chalmadael and the narrow pass of Glen 

 Eisnabearradh, then dying away as it reaches a wider 

 expanse of the loch, to be again renewed by a louder 

 and a shriller blast. And as he loiters to the door 

 to speculate on the probabilities of the morrow's 

 weather, he may chance to see the burning heath, 

 like the beacons of old, blazing on the hills around, 

 and faintly gleaming on the far-distant headlands of 

 Argyllshire.' 1 



It was while Ramsay was engaged in the pre- 

 paration of these chapters for the printer that the 

 long-looked-for prospect of congenial employment at 

 last opened out to him, in a form as unexpected as 

 it was welcome. Among those who, from what they 

 had seen of him and his work at the British Associa- 

 tion, had formed a high opinion of his geological 

 capacity was Murchison. This illustrious geologist, 

 then in the full tide of his work among the older 

 formations of the north and east of Europe, had 

 entertained the idea of possibly extending his labours 



1 Geology of the Island of Ar ran, pp. 7, 27, 36, 40. 



