A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 5 



settling down by the head like a foundering vessel, but of a 

 land whose hills and islands, like its great aristocratic families, 

 have arisen from the level in very various ages, and under 

 the operation of circumstances essentially diverse. 



We left behind us the islands of Lunga, Luing, and Seil, 

 and entered the narrow Sound of Kerrera, with its border of 

 Old Red conglomerate resting on the clay-slate of the dis- 

 trict. We had passed Esdaile near enough to see the work- 

 men employed in the quarries of the island so extensively 

 known in commerce for their roofing slate, and several small 

 vessels beside them, engaged in loading ; and now we had 

 got a step higher in the geological scale, and could mark from 

 the deck the peculiar character of the conglomerate, which, in 

 cliffs washed by the sea, when the binding matrix is softer 

 than the pebbles which it incloses, roughens, instead of being 

 polished, by the action of the waves, and which, along the east- 

 ern side of the Sound here, seems as if formed of cannon-shot 

 of all sizes embedded in cement. The Sound terminates in 

 the beautiful bay of Oban, so quiet and sheltered, with its two 

 island breakwaters in front, its semicircular sweep of hill 

 behind, its long white-walled village, bent like a bow, to 

 conform to the inflection of the shore, its mural precipices 

 behind, tapestried with ivy, its rich patches of green pas- 

 ture, its bosky dingles of shrub and tree, and, perched on 

 the seaward promontory, its old, time-eaten keep. " In one 

 part of the harbour of Oban," says Dr James Anderson, in 

 his "Practical Treatise on Peat Moss," (1794), "where the 

 depth of the sea is about twenty fathoms, the bottom is found 

 to consist of quick peat, which affords no safe anchorage." I 

 made inquiry at the captain of the steamer regarding this 

 submerged deposit, but he had never heard of it. There are, 

 however, many such on the coasts of both Britain and Ire- 

 land. We staid at Oban for several hours, waiting the arri- 

 val of the Fort-William steamer ; and, taking out hammer and 



