A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 175 



but* we now know enough of the construction of the more 

 ancient fish, to cease wondering. The lips were formed of 

 as solid bone as the teeth themselves, and had as fair a chance 

 of being preserved entire ; just as the metallic rim of a toothed 

 wheel has as fair a chance of being preserved as the metallic 

 teeth that project from it. I was interested in marking the 

 various modes of attachment to the body of the animal which 

 the detached scales exhibit The slater fastens on his slates 

 with nails driven into the wood : the tiler secures his tiles 

 by means of a raised bar on the under side of each, that locks 

 into a corresponding bar of deal in the framework of the 

 roof. Now in some of the scales I found the art of the tiler 

 anticipated : there were bars raised on their inner sides, to 

 lay hold of the skin beneath ; while in others it was the 

 art of the slater that had been anticipated, the scales had 

 been slates fastened down by long nails driven in slantwise, 

 which were, however, mere prolongations of the scale itself. 

 Great truths may be repeated until they become truisms, and 

 we fail to note what they in reality convey. The great truth 

 that all knowledge dwelt without beginning in the adorable 

 Creator must, I am afraid, have been thus common-placed 

 in my mind ; for at first it struck me as wonderful that the 

 humble arts of the tiler and slater should have existed in 

 perfection in the times of the Old Red Sandstone. 



I had often remarked amid the fossiliferous limestones of 

 the Lower Old Red, minute specks and slender veins of a 

 glossy bituminous substance somewhat resembling jet, suffi- 

 ciently hard to admit of a tolerable polish, and which emitted 

 in the fire a bright flame. I had remarked, further, its ap- 

 parent identity with a substance used by the ancient inhabi- 

 tants of the northern part of the country in the manufacture 

 of their rude ornaments, as occasionally found in sepulchral 

 urns, such as beads of an elliptical form, and flat parallelo- 

 grams, perforated edge-wise by some four or five holes a-piece ; 



