286 AN ENQUIRY INTO THE N'ATURE OF [Ch. XIII. 



some cases, we find no marks of destruction in the strata 

 through which the granite has protruded, and in others they 

 are detected, but in one instance only, on one side of the 

 granite and not on the other ; and, again, the strata have 

 escaped, whilst the granite itself, to a great extent, has been 

 shattered into innumerable fragments: and it must further 

 be observed, that this upheaving power must have caused an 

 elongation and attenuation of the strata in its progress upwards, 

 in order to account for the wedge-shaped forms of these 

 secondary deposits. 



It did not escape the notice of the geologists on whose valuable 

 details we are now commenting, that the phenomena of this 

 part of Scotland require the supposition of successive eleva- 

 tions. " This description plainly shows," they observe, " that 

 the granite of the Ord must have existed prior to the form- 

 ation of the old conglomerates : this fact does not, however, 

 prove that it then existed at its present elevation ; nor, 

 according to our view of the subject, does it in any way 

 invalidate the hypothesis, which considers the brecciated 

 structure of the oolite to have originated in the last elevation 

 of the primary crystalline masses of the Ord." * If we have 

 not misunderstood these views, the numerous and com- 

 plicated movements supposed to have happened in this 

 comparatively small district of Scotland are referred to the 

 repeated protrusion of granite through the stratified rocks, 

 in a solid form. It is, however, very difficult to conceive the 

 repeated action of such a stupendous power, as is in this case 

 indicated, and in so narrow a compass, without producing 

 utter confusion in the arrangement of the strata; besides, 

 this explanation requires a mode of operation, the protrusion 

 of one solid rock through another, which is, if we mistake 

 not, without any parallel in the action of existing causes. 

 We must confess that it appears to us, that all these phe- 

 nomena may be more plausibly explained, by referring them 



* Geol. Trans. (New Series), vol. iii. p. 140. 



