132 AUTUMNS ON THE SPEY. 



pebbles, indiscriminately scattered through the 

 whole. One of considerable size at my feet ap- 

 peared to have but recently fallen, a portion of the 

 clay in which it was imbedded still adhering to it, 

 and on looking up to discover the place from 

 which it must have dropped, I perceived another 

 of nearly equal dimensions projecting at right 

 angles from the cliff, and suspended, like the 

 sword of Damocles, over my head. So slight a 

 hold did it appear to have in the loose boulder 

 clay, that the report of a gun, discharged from the 

 bottom of the narrow chasm where I stood, would 

 probably have caused it to fall immediately. All 

 the rocks in this part of Scotland are more or 

 less covered by this deposit, composed of debris 

 carried down from the distant mountains by the 

 moving masses of land ice that annually swept 

 over the country during the glacial epoch. At a 

 subsequent period the gradual formation of water- 

 courses followed. These, excavating their chan- 

 nels, slowly but surely, during countless centuries, 

 have eaten their way alike through the superin- 

 cumbent drift and the more indurated mass of 

 conglomerate beneath. The professed geologist, 

 indeed, can discover many other places in this 

 district, and on the banks of the Spey itself, cal- 



