RAMBT.Tgg OP A GEOLOGIST. 269 



kenbergius's Tale, affected the actual existence of that re- 

 markable feature. " It happens to be, notwithstanding your 

 objection," said the controversialists on the pro-nose side of 

 the question. " But it ougM not" replied their opponents. 

 The rain again returned as I was engaged in examining 

 the graphic granite of the Portsoy vein ; the breeze from the 

 sea heightened into a gale, that soon fringed the coast with 

 a broad border of foam ; and I entered the town, which look- 

 ed but indifferently well in its gray dishabille of haze and 

 spray, tolerably wet and worn, with but the prospect before 

 me of being weather-bound for the rest of the day. I found 

 an old-fashioned inn, kept by somewhat old-fashioned people, 

 who had lately come from the country to " open a public ;" 

 and ensconced myself by the fireside, in a huge many-win- 

 dowed room, that must have witnessed the county dinners of 

 at least a century ago. Soon wearying, however, of hearing 

 the rain beating mad-like ratans upon the panes, and avail- 

 ing myself of a comparatively " lucid interval," I sallied out, 

 wrapped up in my plaid, to examine the serpentine beds in 

 the neighbourhood, which produce what is so extensively 

 known as the Portsoy marble. The beds or veins of this sub- 

 stance, for it is still a moot point whether they occur here 

 as mere insulated masses of contemporary origin with the 

 primary formations which surround them, or as Plutonic 

 dykes injected into fissures at a later period, are of very 

 considerable extent, one of them measuring about twenty-five 

 yards across, and another considerably more than a quarter 

 of a mile ; and, had they but the solidity of the true marbles, 

 they would scarce fail to be regarded as valuable quarries of 

 a highly ornamental stone, admirably suited for the interior 

 decorations of the architect. But they are unluckily what 

 the quarrier would term rubbly, traversed by an infinity of 

 cracks and fissures ; and it is rare indeed to find a continuous 

 mass out of which a chimney jamb or lintel could be fashion- 



