226 SEA-SHORE AT BARROGILL. CHAP. xv. 



"Since February last, I sauntered east, I sauntered 

 west ; in fact, I am almost as familiar with every rocky 

 ledge sixteen miles on every side of this place as you 

 are with the desk before you. I have peered into them 

 all, and still there is no news. Old Boniface ate his 

 ale, drank his ale, and slept upon his ale. So may I 

 say, I have ate on the strata, I have hammered the 

 strata, and sometimes I have sat down and fallen asleep 

 on the strata; and, after all, I am not one whit the 

 wiser. 



"One sunny morning I found myself on the sea- 

 shore at Barrogill. I had been there before, but I was 

 never so sure of achieving wonders as I was on this 

 occasion. The Pentland tides had receded to the lowest 

 ebb, and the whole range of stratified schists lay dry and 

 inviting. I set gallantly to work, and charged along 

 one ledge and down another ; up a third, and across a 

 fourth ; retreating, advancing, wheeling, kneeling, poking, 

 poring ; now to the right, now to the left ; then the last 

 tremendous assault, and all is over, save ' Try again.' 



" Well, I found a bed of very dark bituminous schist, 

 very dark whilst wet by the sea. It almost seemed of 

 a coal colour, though the stone, when dry, is brownish. 

 In fact, the strata differ in nothing essential from similar 

 bituminous beds at Brims and near Thurso. In those 

 strata I found nothing, save detached scales of Diplo- 

 pterus, droppings, detached spines of Cheiracanthus, and 

 bits of broken bones of Coccosteus. Here and there, in 

 those beds, lay roundish and irregularly shaped dark- 

 coloured pellets, of what looked like bituminous nodules. 



