GEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 409 



way of preface to what I have to say of a little discovery 

 I have lately made, which may, in the same way, be no 

 discovery at all. 



1 The lias beds, which appear at Eathie and Sharnl- 

 wick, form evidently parts of a continuous ridge, which 

 stretches between these places in a line nearly parallel 

 to that of the coast ; and they must have formed the 

 superior strata of the great secondary basin of this part 

 of the country at the period the granitic rock of the 

 Sutors was forced through. But where, I have frequently 

 asked myself, am I to look for the remains of similar 

 strata on the northern and western sides of these rocks ? 

 or am I to infer that they rose at the extreme edge of 

 the lias, thus merely throwing it off towards the south 

 and east, from the sandstone on which it had rested. I 

 conceived of the lias strata as of ice on a pond ; a wedge 

 forced through it in the centre, would break up its con- 

 tinuity, and derange its position on two sides, the two 

 sides of the wedge, whereas a wedge forced through 

 it at its edge, would merely separate it from the bank, 

 and derange its horizontal position on only one side. 

 The great thickness of the lias at Eathie seems, however, 

 to militate against this latter supposition, the wedge 

 must have been forced through a central part of the 

 pond ; and for several years past I have been examining 

 in my rambles the various ravines on the western and 

 northern sides of the Sutors, and the rocks laid bare by 

 the sea within the bay, in the hope of meeting with the 

 lias. I have at length found, not it, but something 

 equally curious. Rather more than half a mile east of 

 the town the granitic rock is bounded, as you are aware, 

 by a thick bed of breccia ; then there occurs a small vein 

 of limestone, and then alternate strata of coarse red and 

 yellowish sandstone, with here and there a vein of 



