-HAP. XXT. CLIFFS OF STONY CLA YS. 365 



been there ? How high the sea must once have stood 

 if they were rolled up by it yonder! Otherwise, the 

 hill must have got a great lift since it was at sea- 

 level!" 



All these things surprised and astonished Dick. He 

 pondered them over in his mind. They spoke of a long- 

 past era, when the sea had washed its billows over 

 Caithness, and tossed about the rocks as if they were 

 playthings. Morven had been submerged, or its summit 

 had formed but a little island, along which the sea had 

 laid down its bed of rolled pebbles. 



" I have examined attentively," he said, " the cliffs of 

 stony clays along the valley in which the river Thurso 

 runs. They are so stern-looking, so bare, so densely 

 compacted, that a man working with pick and shovel 

 could make but small progress there. Indeed, they are 

 almost as hard as solid rock. Hence it is that fossil 

 shells still exist undecayed in those clays. They are 

 perfectly impervious. No moisture penetrates them. 

 No decay goes on. And then every stone, and piece of 

 stone, is all grooved and scratched, and furrowed and 

 polished, in a way that running water alone could never 

 have done. No tossing of waves, though ever so violent, 

 could do it. No ! If ice and icebergs did not do it, what 

 did ? None can tell. One thing is certain, that those 

 clays are formed out of the rocks on which they lie. 

 And many pieces of rocks are found among them that 

 have travelled far, rocks from as far as Skye ! " 



A lecture having been delivered at Haddington on 

 geology by Mr. Finlayson, a copy of the newspaper con- 



