432 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



be just it," he replied, " iodine ;" but it doesn't make such 

 a demand for the kelp as the glass and the soap." I after- 

 wards learned that the kelp-burner's character of this strip 

 of coast, as peculiarly fatal to the mariner, was borne out by- 

 many a sad casualty, too largely charged with the wild and 

 the horrible to be lightly forgotten. The respected Free 

 Church clergyman of Stromness, Mr Learmonth, informed 

 me that, ere the Disruption, while yet minister of the parish, 

 there were on one sad occasion eight dead bodies carried of 

 a Sabbath morning to his manse door. Some of the inci- 

 dents connected with these terrible shipwrecks, as related 

 with much graphic effect by a boatman who carried me across 

 the sound, on an exploratory ramble to the island of Hoy, 

 struck me as of a character considerably beyond the reach of 

 the mere dealer in fiction. The master of one hapless vessel, 

 a young man, had brought his wife and only child with him 

 on the voyage destined to terminate so mournfully ; and when 

 the vessel first struck, he had rushed down to the cabin to 

 bring them both on deck, as their only chance of safety. He 

 had, however, unthinkingly shut the cabin-door after him ; 

 a second tremendous blow, as not unfrequently happens in 

 such cases, so affected the framework of the sides and deck, 

 that the door was jambed fast in its frame. And long ere 

 it could be cut open, for no human hand could unfasten it, 

 the vessel had filled to the beams, and neither the master 

 nor his wife and child were ever seen more. In another 

 ship, wrecked within a cable-length of the beach, the mate, 

 a man of Herculean proportions, and a skilful swimmer, 

 stripped and leaped overboard, not doubting his ability to 

 reach the shore. But he had failed to remark what in such 

 circumstances is too often forgotten, that the element on which 

 he flung himself, beaten into foam against the shallows, was, 

 according to Mr Bremner's shrewd definition, not water, 

 but a mixture of water and air, specifically lighter than the 



