A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 183 



that atmosphere surrounds ; but certainly the extensive ex- 

 istence of such a red system might produce the effect. If 

 the rocks and soils of Dunnet Head formed average specimens 

 of those of our globe generally, we could look across the hea- 

 vens at Mars with a disk vastly more rubicund and fiery than 

 his own. The earth, as. seen from the moon, would seem 

 such a planet bathed in blood as the moon at its rising fre- 

 quently appears from the earth. 



We have rounded the promontory. The beds exposed 

 along the coast to the lashings of the surf are of various tex- 

 ture and character, here tough, bituminous, and dark ; there 

 of a pale hue, and so hard that they ring to the hammer like 

 plates of cast iron; yonder soft, unctuous, and green, a kind 

 of chloritic sandstone. And these very various powers of re- 

 sistance and degrees of hardness we find indicated by the 

 rough irregularities of the surface. The softer parts retire 

 in long trench-like hollows, the harder stand out in sharp 

 irregular ridges. Fossils abound : the bituminous beds glit- 

 ter bright with glossy quadrangular scales, that look like sheets 

 of black mica inclosed in granite. We find jaws, teeth, tu- 

 bercled plates, skull-caps, spines, and fucoids, " tombs among 

 which to contemplate," says Mr Dick, "of which Hervey 

 never dreamed." The condition of complete keeping in which 

 we discover some of these remains, even when exposed to the 

 incessant dash of the surf, seems truly wonderful We see 

 scales of Holoptychius standing up in bold relief from the 

 hard cherty rock that has worn from around them, with all 

 the tubercles and wavy ridges of their sculpture entire. This 

 state of keeping seems to be wholly owing to the curious 

 chemical change that has taken place in their substance. Ere 

 the skeleton of the Bruce, disinterred entire after the lapse 

 of five centuries, was re-committed to the tomb, there were 

 such measures taken to secure its preservation, that, were it 

 to be again disinterred even after as many centuries more had 



