212 BOULDER PRECIPICES. CHAP. xiv. 



rocky strata, could have done it. No ! Tens and hundreds 

 of millions of steam-mills, grinding stones night and day 

 for a thousand years, could not have done it. No sea 

 casts up anything like it. It is a distinct generic pro- 

 duction, fairly entitled to a place by itself. An observer 

 at Barrogill could not fail to see all this. He could 

 not fail to see that the shore beneath, and along the foot 

 of these clay cliffs, contained a bed of sand, broken 

 shells, and rolled fragments of stones ; and yet this bed 

 is entirely different. 



"Along the shore, in some places, there is a newer 

 formation than the boulder precipices atop a forma- 

 tion laid down at the foot of the cliffs, at unusually high 

 tides. It is thickly charged with broken shells, in some 

 places nearly consolidated to stone ; yet this formation 

 is much newer. It is, in comparison with the other, a 

 thing of yesterday. The deep ditches dug through the 

 Moss of Mey exhibit no section similar to the genuine 

 boulder clay. They are too marly. These low-lying 

 grounds seem to have been, for a long period ere the 

 peat grew over them overspread with shallow pools 

 and lochs of fresh water, in which Limnsea and Cyclas 

 had lived, multiplied, and died, by millions leaving 

 their empty dwellings to crumble down and mix with 

 the sands over which they had crawled. Apt emblem 

 of man ' in his best estate ' ! Surely we all walk in tho 

 same vain show. 



" A beautiful illustration of this is to be seen in the 

 littl^loch of Mey. It is a very shallow pool of fresh 

 water, nearly flat, but deepening a little towards its 



