BUTE. GEOLOGY. 463 



ceptions ; but when these become numerous, rules are 

 rendered useless. A certain regularity is doubtless 

 characteristic of all the operations of nature ; but the 

 pursuit of regularity is seducing, and the conclusions 

 with regard to it, are too often premature. A scru- 

 pulous regard to truth is more peculiarly necessary in 

 the infancy of a science ; and in substituting an imagi- 

 nary for a real order, its progress is more frequently 

 retarded than accelerated. 



The general extent of the sandstone has already been 

 pointed out in the sketch of the island, and a few 

 minute particulars will complete the account of its 

 topography. On the west side, it passes the flat 

 isthmus, and is seen for a short space along the shore 

 of the Garroch head, where it is distinctly visible 

 under the trap. A small and detached portion, accom- 

 panied by limestone, is also to be found at low water 

 on the shore near Scalspie point; which, although se- 

 parated from the general mass by the intervening schist, 

 occupies its proper place in the linear direction of the 

 junction of these two classes of rock. On the east 

 side of the island it occurs also, under the trap; ex- 

 tending about half a mile from Kilchattan bay along 

 the shore, and reaching to a thickness of three or four 

 hundred feet in the hill. These beds dip to the south- 

 west, in an angle varying from ten to fifteen degrees. 

 The dip here named, is however not universal ; and 

 in this respect Bute partakes of that irregularity which 

 characterizes the red sandstone throughout the whole 

 of the Clyde islands. The conglomerate between Rothsay 

 and Ascog, dips to the south-east at twenty degrees 

 or more; near the Garroch head again it is almost 

 horizontal. 



With respect to the composition of these strata, it 

 may be remarked that the general characters are identical 

 with those of the lowest beds in Arran, and that the 

 finer varieties and the conglomerates occur indiscri- 



