210 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY j OR, 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



SUPPLEMENTARY. 



IT is told of the " Spectator," on his own high authority, that 

 having " read the controversies of some great men concern- 

 ing the antiquities of Egypt, he made a voyage to Grand Cairo 

 on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid, and that, so 

 soon as he had set himself right in that particular, he returned 

 to his native country with great satisfaction." My love of 

 knowledge has not carried me altogether so far, chiefly, I dare- 

 say, because my voyaging opportunities have not been quite 

 so great. Ever since my ramble of last year, however, I 

 have felt, I am afraid, a not less interest in the geologic an- 

 tiquities of Small Isles than that cherished by the " Specta- 

 tor" with respect to the comparatively modern antiquities of 

 Egypt; and as, in a late journey to these islands, the object of 

 my visit involved but a single point, nearly as insulated as 

 the dimensions of a pyramid, I think I cannot do better than 

 shelter myself under the authority of the short-faced gentle- 

 man who wrote articles in the reign of Queen Anne. I had 

 found in Eigg, in considerable abundance and fine keeping, 

 reptile remains of the Oolite; but they had occurred in merely 

 rolled masses, scattered along the beach. I had not disco- 

 vered the bed in which they had been originally deposited, 

 and could neither tell its place in the system, nor its relation 

 to the other rocks of the island. The discovery was but a 



