RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 433 



human body ; and so at the shore, though so close at hand, 

 he never arrived, disappearing almost at the vessel's side. 

 " The ground was rough," said my informant, " and the sea 

 ran mountains high ; and I can scarce tell you how I shud- 

 dered on finding, long ere his corpse was thrown up, his two 

 eyes detached from their sockets, staring from a wreath of 

 sea-weed." There is in this last circumstance, horrible enough 

 surely for the wildest German tale ever written, a unique 

 singularity, which removes it beyond the reach of invention. 

 At my inn I found a pressing invitation awaiting me from 

 the Free Church manse, which I was urged to make my 

 home so long as I remained in that part of the country. A 

 geologist, however, fairly possessed by the enthusiasm with- 

 out which weak man can accomplish nothing, whether he 

 be a deer-stalker or a mammoth-fancier, or angle for live 

 salmon or dead Pterichthyes, has a trick of forgetting the 

 right times of dining and taking tea, and of throwing the 

 burden of his bodily requirements on early extempore break- 

 fasts and late suppers ; and so, reporting myself a man of 

 irregular habits and bad hours, whose movements could not 

 in the least be depended upon, I had to decline the hospi- 

 tality which would fain have adopted me as its guest, not- 

 withstanding the badness of the character that, in common 

 honesty, I had to certify as my own. Next morning I break- 

 fasted at the manse, and was introduced by Mr Leannonth 

 to two gentlemen of the place, who had been -kindly invited 

 to meet with me, and who, from their acquaintance with the 

 geology of the district, enabled me to make the best use of 

 my time, by cutting direct on those cliffs and quarries in the 

 neighbourhood in which organic remains had been detected, 

 instead of wearily re-discovering them for myself There is 

 a small but interesting museum in Stromness, rich in the 

 fossils of the locality ; and I began the geologic business of 

 the day by devoting an hour to the examination of its organ- 



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