CHAP. x. HOLBORN HEAD. 125 



" This fish bed reminds me very much of the fish bed 

 at Weydale, a few miles south of Thurso. The fish are 

 of the same species. I remember very well hiring a 

 flagman, and toiling with him half a day, and all that 

 we gathered was two fossil fish out of some hundreds of 

 broken worthless stuff. 



" Beyond the ditch the cliffs rise again, and continue 

 of the same height about 190 feet; and then they 

 swell up suddenly about ten feet more, into a sort of 

 round hill. From thence the cliffs gradually fall, and 

 slope away down to Brims. Before arriving there we 

 find a bed of calcareous slates, of noted appearance, full 

 of the remains of fish, snouts of Diplopterus, jaws, 

 scales, and warty bones. Westward of the house of 

 Brims, there is the same appearance of fish remains 

 amongst bituminous rocks. 



" The strata west of Brims are well worthy the 

 inspection of the geologist, on account of the very extra- 

 ordinary position many of them assume. Their appear- 

 ance is singular in the extreme." 



Holborn Head, and the rocks beyond, continued to be 

 a favourite haunt of our geologist. He not only haunted 

 the top of the cliffs, but by a difficult and dangerous 

 path descended to the rocks underneath them. He 

 resolved that nothing should remain concealed where 

 the pick and chisel could reach them. "Determined," 

 he says, in a letter addressed to Hugh Miller, dated the 

 6th of May, only two days after the above inspection, 

 " to put down nothing but what I had seen with my 

 own eyes, I started this evening at seven o'clock ; and 



