TIREY. GEOLOGY. 45 



There are few things more remarkable to a stranger 

 who has been accustomed to the cottages of the south, 

 than the total want of gardens, or even of any culti- 

 vated vegetable beyond the potatoe. It is not an ex- 

 aggeration, I believe, to say, that there is not a culinary 

 vegetable in the country except in the establishments of 

 the proprietors and principal farmers, nor are even all 

 these exempt from censure for their neglect of this 

 department of rural economy. The facility with which 

 this most simple improvement might be introduced, and 

 its total absence, seem unaccountable : but it is disagree- 

 able to proceed where there is more to censure than to 

 praise ; I shall therefore terminate this digression, and 

 return to the geological structure of Tirey. 



Taken in a general view, the whole chain of Coll and 

 Tirey may be said to consist of a body of gneiss. But 

 each island offers sufficient varieties to render a more 

 minute description necessary. 



I was unable in Tirey to trace any regularity of dis- 

 position, or even such an approach to it, as to lay down 

 the probable course of the beds. This may arise in a 

 great measure from the inconsiderable elevations of the 

 rocks above the plain, but it is scarcely visible even in 

 the hills; or if for a small space any line of direction or 

 any inclination of a few beds is traced, at the very next 

 step the order ceases, and the appearance of regularity 

 vanishes. 



Considerable masses of naked rock are seen in the small 

 hills above described ; but except in one place there is 

 no precipitous face, the general character consisting in 

 summits of detached ridges separated by patches of grass. 

 In the flatter parts of the island similar protuberances 

 are irregularly dispersed all over the soil, seldom ex- 

 ceeding from ten to twenty feet in height. The peculiar 

 external forms of gneiss are obvious throughout the 



