

HANDA. GEOLOGY. 87 



of which it consists are generally of a fine texture, and 

 remarkably regular; undulating in a slight degree, but 

 so little deviating from the horizontal position, that 

 no predominant dip can well be assigned. If there be 

 any, it is toward the east. Like the Summer isles, 

 the rocks consist entirely of the indurated red sandstone, 

 without any alternation of the grey varieties, or of tlie 

 schist which occurs in Sky and in Rasay. This indeed 

 is peculiar to the whole of the kindred rocks on the 

 continental shore, from Loch Carron northwards, the 

 change occurring in Applecross ; whence, even to Cape 

 Wrath, no alternating substance except white or grey 

 quartz rock is scarcely ever found. 



In a general view it is interesting to trace the affinity 

 between Handa and the nearest masses of the same 

 rock on the coast. The first will be found near the 

 entrance of Loch Inchard, whence, to near Cape Wrath, 

 it occupies patches of greater or less magnitude, and 

 often of very small dimensions ; all of these being cha- 

 racterized by the same tenuity, evenness, and horizontality 

 of stratification, and all similarly reposing on that gneiss 

 with which in other parts of this coast they alternate. 

 So small are some of these patches that the above 

 mentioned one near Loch Inchard does not exceed 100 

 yards in diameter. At the Ru -Carnderig near Loch 

 Broom, a similar one is seen, occupying a space of 

 a few feet only, and, in the same manner, involved in 

 gneiss. On comparing all these scattered portions, it 

 is impossible to avoid imagining that they have formerly 

 been continuous, and are the fragments of an extensive 

 deposit, once occupying the whole of this coast, and 

 now separated by the action of the sea and other wasting 

 causes. This notion is confirmed by the palpable ap- 

 pearances of rapid waste exhibited on the shores on 

 each side of Cape Wrath ; where every variety of ruin 

 is seen, in the pinnacled cliffs, in the sliding down of 

 huge masses, and in the heaps of fragments which, 



