RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 331 



lation to the pile in its gathered state, that bore reference to 

 man's short lifetime, and to the recent introduction of the 

 species. The child of a few summers speaks of the events 

 of last year as long gone by ; while his father, advanced into 

 middle life, regards them as still fresh and recent. 



I reached the Burn of Killein, the scene of my purposed 

 explorations, where it bisects the Inverness road; and struck 

 down the rocky ravine, in the line of the descending strata 

 and the falling streamlet, towards the point at which I had 

 crossed it so many years before. First I passed along a thick 

 bed of yellow stone, next over a bed of stratified clay. 

 " The little boy," I said, " took correct note of what he saw, 

 though without special aim at the time, and as much under 

 the guidance of a mere observative instinct as Dame Quickly, 

 when she took note of the sea-coal fire, the round table, the 

 parcel-gilt goblet, and good wife Keech's dish of prawns 

 dressed in vinegar, as adjuncts of her interview with old Sir 

 John when he promised to marry her. These are unequivo- 

 cally the ichthyolitic beds, whether they contain ichthyolites 

 or no." The first nodule I laid open presented inside merely 

 a pale oblong patch in the centre, which I examined in vain 

 with the lens, though convinced of its organic origin, for a 

 single scale. Proceeding farther down the stream, I picked 

 a nodule out of a second and lower bed, which contained 

 more evidently its organism, a finely-reticulated fragment, 

 that at first sight reminded me of some delicate festinella of 

 the Silurian system. It proved, however, to be part of the 

 tail of a Cheiracanthus, exhibiting what is rarely shown 

 the interior surfaces of those minute rectangular scales which 

 in this genus lie over the caudal fin, ranged in right lines. 

 A second nodule presented me with the spines of Diplacan- 

 thus striatus ; and still farther down the stream, for the 

 beds are numerous here, and occupy in vertical extent very 

 considerable space in the system, I detected a stratum of 



