RAMBLES OP A GEOLOGIST. 301 



the angle of inclination at which the disintegrating agents 

 ceased to operate, and the green sward covered all up. You 

 must be studying these peculiarities of aspect more than ever 

 you studied them before. There is a time coming when the 

 connoisseur will as rigidly demand the specific character of 

 the various geologic rocks and deposits in your hills, scaurs, 

 and precipices, as he now demands specific character in your 

 shrubs and trees. 



It is worthy the notice of the young geologist, who has 

 just set himself to study the various effects produced on the 

 surface of a country by the deposits which lie under it, that 

 for about a quarter of a mile or so, the base of the escarp- 

 ment here is bordered by a line of bogs, that bear in the 

 driest weather their mantling of green. They are fed with 

 a perennial supply of water, by a range of deep-seated springs, 

 that come bursting out from under the boulder-clay; and 

 one of their number, which bears, I know not why, the name 

 of Samuel's Well, and yields its equable flow at an equable 

 temperature, summer and winter, into a stone trough by the 

 wayside, is not a little prized by the town's-people, and the 

 seamen that cast anchor in the opposite roadstead, for the 

 lightness and purity of its water. What is specially worthy 

 of notice in the case is, the very definite beginning and end- 

 ing of the chain of bogs. All is dry at the base of the es- 

 carpment, up to the point at which they commence; and 

 then all is equally dry at the point at which they terminate. 

 And of exactly the same extent, beginning where the bogs 

 begin, and ending where they end, we may trace an ancient 

 stratum of pure sand, of considerable thickness, intercalated 

 between the base of the clay and the superior surface of the 

 Old Red Sandstone. It is through this permeable sand that 

 the profoundly seated springs find their way to the surface, 

 for the clay is impermeable ; and where it comes in contact 

 with the rock on either side of the arenaceous stratum, the 



