HELM SD ALE FOSSILS, 361 



and when polished will be exceedingly so. The pattern 

 is that of a piece of honeycomb, with a many -rayed star 

 in the centre of each hexagon. Lyell figures it in his 

 Section on the Oolite, and I remember being struck 

 with the beauty of the figure. Both the corals and the 

 fossil wood take the form here of a very rich limestone, 

 and the people gather them on the shores, and burn 

 them in kilns for lime, without dreaming that in some 

 remote age of the world the one has manifested animal, 

 and the other vegetable, life. On passing along the 

 beach I went up to a kiln beside which several tons of 

 limestone had been lately accumulated. Fully two- 

 thirds of the whole was fossil wood, and the half of the 

 remaining third corals. The people have learned to dig 

 the trees out of a shaly conglomerate just as in the 

 centre of the county they once used to dig trees out of 

 the mosses, but though they saw the coaly bark, the 

 pith, and the annual rings, it never once came into their 

 heads to suppose it was trees they were digging. I 

 pointed out to one of the owners of the lime-kiln the 

 true nature of the stones he was employing, and he 

 seemed much surprised. " That," he said, " was never 

 known here before." Much depends on the locality of 

 a marvel. All the world has heard of the fossil -trees of 

 Craig-Leith. Here fossil trees not less in bulk, and 

 quite as finely petrified, are so abundant that the High- 

 landers dig them out for lime, and yet no one has heard 

 anything of them. 



' I had a Highland boy of thirteen carrying my bag 

 all day. He soon became as good a practical geologist 

 as myself, and as expert in finding corals and belemnites. 

 Boys are much less stupid than men. The Highland 

 boy learned to know at the first telling that detached 

 fragments of belemnites were of no value, and that the 



