304 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



little way with the Old Red portion of the task ; but alas for 

 the boulder-clay portion of it ! A bar of impenetrable sha- 

 dow has rested long and obstinately over the newer deposit ; 

 and I scarce know whether the light which is at length be- 

 ginning to play on its pebbly front be that of the sun or of 

 a delusive meteor. But courage, patient hearts ! the boulder- 

 clay will one day yield up its secret too. Still further on by 

 a few hundred yards, I could have again found use for the 

 calotype, in transferring to paper the likeness of a protube- 

 rant picturesque cliff, which, like the Giants' Graves, could 

 have belonged, of all our Scotch deposits, to only the boulder- 

 clay. It stands out, on the steep acclivity of a furze-covered 

 bank, abrupt as a precipice of solid rock, and yet seamed by 

 the rain into numerous divergent channels, with pyramidal 

 peaks between ; and, combining the perpendicularity of a 

 true cliff with the water-scooped furrows of a yielding clay, 

 it presents a peculiarity of aspect which strikes, by its gro- 

 tesqueness, eyes little accustomed to detect the picturesque 

 in landscape. I remember standing to gaze upon it when a 

 mere child ; and the fisher children of the neighbouring town 

 still tell that " it has been prophesied" it will one day fall, 

 " and kill a man and a horse on the road below," a legend 

 which shows it must have attracted their notice too. 



I selected as the special scene of exploration this morning, 

 a deep ravine of the boulder-clay, which had been recently 

 deepened still more by the waters of a mill-pond, that had 

 burst during a thunder-shower, and, after scooping out for 

 themselves a bed in the clay some twelve or fifteen feet deep, 

 where there had been formerly merely a shallow drain, had 

 then tumbled into the ravine, and bared it to rock. The 

 sandstones of the district, soft and not very durable, show 

 the scratched and polished surfaces but indifferently well, 

 and, when exposed to the weather, soon lose them ; but in 

 the bottom of the runnel by which the ravine is swept I 



