380 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



on the muirs on our way hame. But the tea has put out the 

 nappy ; an' I have remarked, that by losing the nappy we lost 

 baith ghaists an' fairies." 



Quitting the ruin, I walked on along the shore, tracing the 

 sandstone as I went, as it rises from lower to higher beds; and 

 where it ceases to crop out at the surface, and gravel and the 

 red boulder-clays take the place of rock, I struck up the hill, 

 and, traversing the parishes of Resolis and Cromarty, got home 

 early in the evening. I had seen and done scarcely half what 

 I had intended seeing or doing : alas, that in reference to 

 every walk which I have yet attempted to tread, this special 

 statement should be so invariably true to fact ! alas, that all 

 my full purposes should be coupled with but half realizations ! 

 But I had at least the satisfaction, that though I had accom- 

 plished little, I had enjoyed much ; and it is something, though 

 not all, nor nearly all, that, since time is passing, it should 

 pass happily. In my next chapter I shall enter on my tour 

 to Orkney. It dates one year earlier (1846) than the tour 

 with which I have already occupied so many chapters ; but 

 I have thus inverted the order of time, by placing it last, that 

 I may be able so to preserve the order of space as to render 

 the tract travelled over in my narrative continuous from Edin- 

 burgh to the northern extremity of Pomona. 



