126 



EXCURSION V. 

 To THE NORTH SHORE . 



87. THE coast section from Corrie to Loch Eanza is full of 

 interest. A long summer's day will be required to examine it 

 carefully, several days, if we stop to collect the fossils which abound 

 in some of the beds. The scenery, too, is full of beauty, in parts 

 bold and picturesque in the extreme : we shall be tempted to stop very 

 often to add some new treasure to our portfolio. Leaving Inver- 

 cloy by the first steamer for Glasgow, we shall be at Corrie for an 

 early breakfast, and be ready to start fresh while the day is yet 

 young. Corrie is, in fact, for several excursions an admirable 

 point of departure.* 



The strata at the base of the carboniferous system, and their 

 contact with the old red sandstone, are well exposed upon the shore. 

 We shall trace them in ascending order, beginning a quarter of a 

 mile north of Corrie, at the march of Achab farm, where the road 

 bends toward the N.W.f This is the base of the series; but it is 

 not a well defined base ; there is, in fact, a gradual passage from 

 the old red system into the carboniferous strata. The old red is 

 here a conglomerate ; and is overlaid by a limestone with im- 

 bedded pebbles, the same as those in the conglomerate, forming a 

 calcareous conglomerate. This bed is followed by gray sandstone 

 and concretionary limestone, or cornstone, consisting of red nodules, 

 imbedded in shale. A bed of gray limestone succeeds, and 

 then various beds of sandstone and shale, till we reach an enor- 

 mous vein or dike of trap, which occupies the shore for more 

 than 300 yards. In this are found basalt, greenstone, amgy- 

 daloid, and concretionary trap, exfoliating in concentric coats ; and 

 it is traversed by numerous veins of calc spar, steatite, and quartz . J 

 The next beds seen are a red and a gray limestone ; there is then a 

 whin dike; south of which, from the gate upon the road to the 

 limestone quarry, the shore is occupied by sandstone. The strata 



* A handsome and commodious hotel has very recently been erected; and under 

 its present management is a most comfortable and pleasant residence for a few days. 



f Mr. Douglas, postmaster at Corrie, and his two sons, are highly intelligent 

 and obliging persons, well acquainted with the strata in the vicinity, and with the 

 geology of the island generally. 



J Ramsay's Arran, p. 20. 



