RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 271 



to the darker portions ; and veins of hematitic and deep 

 umbry tints, variety to the portions that are lighter. The 

 greens vary from the palest olive to the deepest black-green 

 of the mineralogist ; the reds and browns, from blood-red to 

 dark chocolate, and from wood-brown to brownish-black ; 

 and, thus various in shade, they occur in almost every possi- 

 ble variety of combination and form, dotted, spotted, cloud- 

 ed, veined, so that each separate pebble on the shore seems 

 the representative of a rock different from the rocks repre- 

 sented by almost all the others. Though not much of a 

 mineralogist, I could have spent considerably more time than 

 the weather permitted me to employ this evening, in admir- 

 ing the beauties of this beach of marbles, or rather, as the 

 real name, derived from those gorgeous, many-coloured cloud- 

 ings that impart a terrible splendour to the skins of the snake 

 and viper family, is not only the more correct, but also the 

 more poetical of the two, this beach of serpentines. I had, 

 however, to compromise matters between the fierce wind and 

 rain and the pretty rocks and pebbles, by adjourning to the 

 workshop of the Portsoy lapidary, Mr Clark, and examining 

 under cover his polished specimens, of which I purchased for 

 a few shillings a characteristic and elegant little set Port- 

 soy is peculiarly rich in minerals ; and hence it reckons among 

 its mechanics of the ordinary class, what perhaps no other 

 village in Scotland of the same size and population possesses, 

 a skilful lapidary. Mr Clark's collection of the graphic gra- 

 nites, serpentines, and talcose and mica schists, of the district, 

 with their associated minerals, such as schorl, talc, asbestos, 

 amianthus, mountain cork, steatite, and schiller spar, will be 

 found eminently worthy a visit by the passing traveller. 



I made several inquiries in the village, though not, as it 

 proved, in the right direction, regarding a poor old lady, se- 

 veral years dead, of whom I had known a very little consi- 

 derably more than a quarter of a century before, and whose 



