316 SKY. GEOLOGY. SECONDARY STRATA. 



coast of Sky, can be traced. But the red sandstone is 

 not found in situ in this part of Sky. If we consider 

 the distance of the opposed shores and the direction of 

 the tide stream, there is no reason to suppose that the 

 detached stones of Fladda have been washed from Rasay, 

 while there is no communication between these islands 

 to authorize the supposition that they have been trans- 

 ported as ballast. It is therefore probable that the gneiss 

 and red sandstone both exist below the sea close to 

 Fladda, extending thither from Rasay ; and we are thus 

 enabled to compare at another point the connexions of the 

 superior and inferior strata of Sky. 



THE next rock in order is the limestone, the investi- 

 gation of which was attended by greater difficulties than 

 that of any rock in the island. The novelty of the facts 

 will perhaps, like many of those formerly mentioned, 

 excite in the minds of others, as it did in my own, a 

 suspicion that the intricacy of the ground and the con- 

 fusion of the several objects had led to some deception. 

 My own suspicions have fully subsided, and a confirma- 

 tion of the facts here stated having occurred in the 

 examination of the Isle of Man, I can with the greater 

 confidence proceed to give the history of this district. 



Its geographical extent cannot be strictly defined, on 

 account of the number of scattered parts which it pre- 

 sents ; nor is even the map, from its necessarily limited 

 dimensions, capable of supplying this defect. Fortunately 

 a rigid topographical detail is but of little moment com- 

 pared with the scientific interest it possesses, and there 

 is the less reason therefore to dwell on those minutiae, 

 though they have been examined in the most scrupulous 

 manner. 



The irregularity of position and feature occurring in 

 these strata are the first obvious deviations from that 

 order which characterizes the preceding rocks, and which 



