148 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



lie as thickly as currants in a Christmas cake ; and as they 

 weather white, while the stone in which they are embedded 

 retains its dingy hue, they somewhat remind one of the white- 

 lead tears of the undertaker mottling a hatchment of sable. 

 In a fragment of the dark sandstone, six inches by seven, 

 which I brought with me, I reckon no fewer than twenty-two 

 gryphites ; and it forms but an average specimen of the bed 

 from which I detached it. By far the most abundant species 

 is that not inelegant shell so characteristic of the formation, 

 the Gryphcea incurva. We find detached specimens scattered 

 over the beach by hundreds, mixed up with the remains of 

 recent shells, as if the Gryphcea incurva were a recent shell 

 too. They lie, bleached white by the weather, among the valves 

 of defunct oysters and dead bucciriidse j and, from their re- 

 semblance to lamps cast in the classic model, remind one, in 

 the corners where they have accumulated most thickly, of the 

 old magician's stock in trade, who wiled away the lamp of 

 Aladdin from Aladdin's simple wife. The Gryphcea obliquita 

 and Gryphcea M'Cullochii also occur among these middle strata 

 of the Lias, though much less frequently than the other. We, 

 besides, found in them at least two species of Pecten, with two 

 species of Terebratula, the one smooth, the other sulcated ; 

 a bivalve resembling a Donax ; another bivalve, evidently 

 a Gervillia, though apparently of a species not yet described ; 

 and the ill-preserved rings of large Ammonites, from ten 

 inches to a foot in diameter. Towards the bottom of the 

 bay the fossils again become more rare, though they re-ap- 

 pear once more in considerable abundance as we pass along 

 its northern side ; but in order to acquaint ourselves with 

 the upper organisms of the formation, we have to take boat 

 and explore the northern shores of Pabba. The Lias of Skye 

 has its three distinct groupes of fossils : its lower coraline 

 group, in which the Astrea described is most abundant ; its 

 middle group, in which the Gryplma incurva occurs by mil- 



