RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 443 



it to its centrum, projecting from it, in specimens from which 

 the vertebral column itself has wholly disappeared. I found 

 frequent traces, during my exploratory labours in Orkney, 

 of the dorsal and ventral fins of this ichthyolite ; but no 

 trace whatever of the pectorals or of the caudal fin. There 

 seem to have been no pectorals ; and the tail, as I have al- 

 ready had occasion to remark, was apparently a mere point, 

 unfurnished with rays. 



In descending from the cliffs upon the quarries, my com- 

 panion pointed to an angular notch in the rock-edge, appa- 

 rently the upper termination of one of the numerous vertical 

 cracks by which the precipices are traversed, and which in 

 so many cases on the Orkney coast have been hollowed by 

 the waves into long open coves or deep caverns. It was up 

 there, he said, that about twelve years ago the sole survivor 

 of a ship's crew contrived to scramble, four days after his 

 vessel had been dashed to fragments against the rocks below, 

 and when it was judged that all on board had perished. The 

 vessel was wrecked on a "Wednesday. She had been marked, 

 when in the offing, standing for the bay of Stromness ; but 

 the storm was violent, and the shore a lee one ; and as it 

 was seen from the beach that she could scarce weather the 

 headland yonder, a number of people gathered along the cliffs, 

 furnished with ropes, to render to the crew whatever assist- 

 ance might be possible in the circumstances. Human help, 

 however, was to avail them nothing. Their vessel, a fine 

 schooner, when within forty yards of the promontory, was 

 seized broadside by an enormous wave, and dashed against 

 the cliff, as one might dash a glass r phial against a stone-wall. 

 One blow completed the work of destruction ; she went roll- 

 ing in entire from keel to mast-head, and returned, on the 

 recoil of the broken surge, a mass of shapeless fragments, that 

 continued to dance idly amid the foam, or were scattered 

 along the beach. But of the poor men, whom the spectators 



