354 HUGH MILLER'S " BASE." CHAP, xxi, 



Old Eed age. Professor Nicol said it was of mountain lime- 

 stone. Sir Roderick Murchison has classed it Silurian. 



" When Hugh Miller was in Orkney he saw the Old 

 Eed conglomerate at Stromness, and followed the fos- 

 siliferous rocks along the sea-shore upwards, until he 

 found a fossil bone, which he termed the " Nail," and 

 he counted how many feet this "nail" was above the 

 Old Red conglomerate. He considered this " nail " the 

 oldest bone in Scotland. So he said. He knew of none 

 older at that time. The Durness fossils being all shells 

 and molluscous animal remains, Hugh probably thought 

 that nothing of a bony nature existed in Scotland older 

 than his Stromness " nail." And this bone was a fish 

 remain, many hundred feet above the Old conglomerate. 



"But what would Hugh have thought of fish 

 underlying Old Red conglomerate? Fish remains older 

 than conglomerate ? Alas, poor Hugh ! such is actually 

 the case. The other day I turned up and brought 

 home with me to Thurso the remains of fish that had 

 lain buried below the Old Red conglomerate ! But 

 Hugh had seen the ' Base ' in many places, and pre- 

 ferred retaining the old opinion. 



" I believe the opinion entertained by our highest 

 geologists is, that there is Old Red conglomerate of 

 many ages ; whereas Hugh Miller considered it as of 

 one age one great formation. He says that it extends 

 from the Grampians to Orkney, and from Peterhead to 

 the Western Isles ; that it lies in a continuous stratum 

 of variable thickness; and that no fish lived then in 

 what is now Scotland. A great mistake ! 



