98 Prof. C. Lapworth — Close of the Highland Controversy. 



of the manly opposition of Nicol ; and of the labours, the discoveries, 

 and the conclusions of its opponents, from the date of the bold re- 

 opening of the controversy by Dr. Hicks, down to the issue of the 

 report of Messrs. Peach and Home, will form a most interesting and 

 instructive chapter in the history of British Geology. It is to be hoped 

 that some geologist, who is familiar with all the facts, and has not 

 identified himself with either of the contending parties, will write 

 this story for the information and edification of our scientific public 

 in general, while the subject is still fresh in the minds of all. 



By myself, the Murchisonian hypothesis has been objected to upon 

 two grounds : first, because I believed that the assumed strati- 

 graphical proofs upon which it was founded were erroneous, and 

 that their general acceptance delayed the discovery of the true laws 

 of the stratigraphy of the older convoluted rocks; second, because 

 the supposed ascending succession in the North-West seemed to 

 shut up geologists in general to a theory of regional metamorphism, 

 which I regarded as impossible and absurd. Some of my ideas 

 respecting the worthlessness of Murohison's stratigraphical evidences, 

 were published in the first part of my uncompleted paper on the 

 " Secret of the Highlands," together with a short sketch of the strati- 

 graphical phenomena that might reasonably be expected in these 

 mountain regions.^ The actual stratigraphy of the more important 

 parts of the Durness-Eriboll district, and a sketch of the probable 

 agency and mode of metamorphism of its schists, I trusted to be able to 

 develope in the final parts of that paper; but a severe illness contracted 

 by myself in working out the rocks in the North- West has prevented 

 the execution of this task. Indeed, there is now no longer any 

 absolute necessity for its completion, for the conclusions at which I 

 arrived seem to me to be identical in all their essentials with those 

 recently published by Messrs. Peach and Home. 



A brief summary of my own results in so far as they afi'ect the 

 age, composition, and mode of formation of the eastern schists, as 

 deduced from the remarkable stratigraphical and metamorphic pheno- 

 mena apparent in Durness and Eriboll, will be found in the brief 

 communication printed in the appendix to these remarks. It was 

 written mainly to show the difference between my own views and 

 . the views of those, on the one hand, who believed in the Archasan 

 age of all the Eastern metamorphic rocks, and of those, on the other, 

 who held that because the Durness Limestone was sixcceeded, with 

 apparent conformity, by the metamorphic schists in Sango Bay, the 

 latter were geologically newer. It was read on my behalf by my 

 friend Mr. J. H. Teall at the ordinary meeting of the Geologists' 

 Association on the ith of July last, and is here reprinted, from an 

 advanced proof, by the kind permission of the Council of the Asso- 

 ciation. It is not referred to in this place, as establishing any selfish 

 claim to priority, for the officers of the Survey reached their con- 

 clusions in complete ignorance of my results, and from a totally 

 different direction, while they have gone far beyond me in working 



1 See Geol. Mag. Decade II. Yol. X. 1883, pp. 120, 193, aud 337. 



