1858.] GLENS CANLOCHEN AND DOLE. 585 



diately behind us, is a great fissured rock of hornblende, varying 

 in texture, sometimes approaching to claystone, sometimes re- 

 sembling greenstone. Red porphyry also appears in it, in the 

 form of a vertical dyke ; and there are intermixed masses of a 

 kind of a mica slate, approaching in texture to clay slate. Then 

 comes a very steep grassy declivity, and beyond it a more abrupt 

 space, with dark scars looking as if formed in a serpentine. The 

 rock however is a dark- coloured, somewhat micaceous clayslate. 

 It consists of very thin undulated laminae, glistening, generally 

 so soft as to be easily grooved by the nail. The colour is blackish- 

 grey ; that of the powder, pale-grey. It is sometimes meagre to 

 the touch, generally soft, often unctuous. There is scarcely any 

 quartz in it, and it contains iron pyrites and protoxide of iron, 

 and the laminae of the slate are often coated with an iridescent 

 film. 



" Part of the rock at the head of the glen, that which is most 

 productive of plants, is of mica slate, composed of laminae of 

 mica and quartz. The texture and aspect have however been 

 altered by an irregular mass of trap, in the vicinity of Avhich it 

 has become compact, the quartz assuming a semi-fused, porcellanic 

 appearance. This trap is an extremely tenacious hornblende rock, 

 of crystalline texture, with uneven indeterminate fractures, and 

 having a very little granular quartz intermixed. It may be ordi- 

 nary hornblende slate, or clayslate altered by the prophyry." 



On our first visit to Canlochen, our ultimate distination was 

 the Kirktown of Clova. We arrived in the glen soon after II 

 A.M., but owing to the numberless botanical rarities which met 

 our eyes at every step, and a detention arising from an awkward 

 fix into which one of us contrived to get himself, it was nearly 

 5 P.M. before we left it, with the prospect of a weary tramp of 

 ten miles or more before us, and over perfectly unknown ground. 

 Passing through the narrow defile which forms the entrance to 

 the glen, we arrived at the shieling, or highland hut, situated 

 almost at the point of junction of the Canlochen stream and that 

 from Glen Caness, which now appears a mile or so to the north- 

 east, evidently very precipitous and grand, but not equal to the 

 one we have just left. These two streams, after uniting their 

 waters, form the river Isla. Our course now lay due east, and 

 we began to ascend the steep slope of the mountain in order to 

 cross the wide ridge of elevated table-land which separates Glen 



N. S. VOL. II. 4 p 



