CHAP. x. VIEW FROM THURSO BAY. 119 



" ' He that has sailed upon the deep blue sea 

 Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair sight.' 



" Such," he goes on to say, " is Byron's beautiful descrip- 

 tion of a scene at sea ; and such has often been my own 

 feeling, when, at evening's hour, my steps have measured 

 the beach that lies spread out so temptingly fair between 

 this little town and its beautiful bay. For, 'tis not 

 unusual, in the month of May, to observe, out in the 

 Firth, some eight or ten large vessels with ' every white 

 sail set,' ' curling the waves before each dashing prow.' " 



But Dick had not gone down to look at the beauti- 

 ful bay and the passing ships, or at Dunnet Head and 

 Hoy Head, with the setting sun glinting along their 

 sides, throwing out their rocky projections, and leaving 

 their hollows and gyoes in the shade. No ! He had 

 gone down to the coast " geologically bent." He wan- 

 dered westward on the sand and then on the rocks, 

 hammer in hand, ready to strike a blow, or any number 

 of blows, for the honour of science. 



" Passing on," he says, " I walk over a bed of loose 

 sand smoothed and levelled by the tide, and after a time 

 I reach the solid rocks, of a bluish-grey cast, and dip- 

 ping northerly, with a little of west. The first beds I 

 meet are not decidedly fossiliferous, though a few scales 

 and droppings may be found. A little farther on I see 

 some warty bones, and still farther, there is a bed 

 decidedly charged with organic remains. Pieces of fish 

 jaws, bones, and tail-half plates of Coccosteus, are seen 

 in considerable numbers. 



" Moving on, I reach an opener space, strewed with 



