A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 207 



differ from, each other, not only in external form, but also in 

 every brick and beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of ex- 

 ternal alteration can induce a real resemblance. Every brick 

 must be taken down, and every beam and bolt removed. The 

 problem cannot be wrought by the remodelling of an old 

 house : there is no other mode of solving it save by the erec- 

 tion of a new one. 



Among the singularly interesting Old Red fossils of Mr 

 Duff's collection I saw the impression of a large ichthyolite 

 from the superior yellow sandstone of the Upper Old Red, 

 which had been brought him by a country diker only a few 

 days before. In breaking open a building stone, the diker 

 had found the inside of it, he said, covered over with curi- 

 ously carved flowers ; and, knowing that Mr Duff had a turn 

 for curiosities, he had brought the flowers to him. The sup- 

 posed flowers are the sculpturings on the scales of the ichthyo- 

 lite ; and, true to the analogy of the diker, on at least a first 

 glance, they may be held to resemble the rather equivocal 

 florets of a cheap wall-paper, or of an ornamental tile. The 

 specimen exhibits the impressions of four rows of oblong rect- 

 angular scales. One row contains seven of these, and ano- 

 ther eight Each scale averages about an inch and a quarter 

 in length by about three quarters of an inch in breadth ; and 

 the parallelogramical field which it presents is occupied by a 

 curious piece of carving. By a sort of pictorial illusion, the 

 device appears as if in motion : it would seem as if a sudden 

 explosion had taken place in the middle of the field, and as 

 if the numerous dislodged fragments, propelled all around by 

 the central force, were hurrying to the sides. But these seem- 

 ing fragments were not elevations in the original scale, but 

 depressions. They almost seem as if they had been indented 

 into it, in the way one sees the first heavy drops of a thunder 

 shower indented into a platform of damp sea-sand ; and this 

 last peculiarity of appearance seems to have suggested the 



