August 26, 1880] 



NATURE 



401 



lands have^been formed, that these sedimentary accumu- 

 lations — how many thousand feet thick we cannot yet 

 tell — were subsequently over the Highland area crumpled 

 and metamorphosed into crystalline schists, and that 

 finally towards the west the ancient platform of gneiss 



was once more ridged up and gradually bared of its 

 superincumbent load of rock, until now at length some 

 portions of it have been once more laid open to the air. 



There is thus a special historical interest in this frag- 

 ment of the old gneiss country. It is a portion of the 



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earhest European surface of which as yet we know any- I might fail to exert. Each visit suggests some fresh 

 ^i!'"IT~^ surface in chronological comparison with which , problem, if it does not cast light on earlier difficulties, 

 the Alps are of quite modern date. For many years past One of the questions which must particularly engage the 

 I have at mtervals wandered over it, finding in its undula- attention of ever>- obser\-ant traveller in Western Suther- 

 tions ofbare rock a fascination which a fairer landscape | land and Ross is the origin of that extraordinary contour 



