THE ISLE OF EIGG. ] 57 



In the Mineralogy of the Western Islands, Professor 

 Jameson states, that to the south of the sandstone which 

 occurs on the eastern side of the island, he observed 



namely, that in the centres of some of the circles, portions of the reti- 

 culated texture may he distinctly seen. 



Some dislocations have taken place in this specimen, without the 

 parts having heen separated from each other. Of these some are in 

 the direction of the radii, others in a concentric direction. The for- 

 mer are discernible merely in consequence of the edges of the layers 

 on one side of the slip being opposite the middle of the layers on the 

 other side, and the latter, in consequence of the medullary rays in one 

 layer not passing through the slip into the adjoining layer. 



In the longitudinal section parallel to a radius, this fossil shews no 

 indication of discs of any kind. The partitions of the vessels are very 

 much crowded together, greatly distorted, and the vessels furnish no- 

 thing of a characteristic kind." 



Mr Nicol states further, that this fossil has been described in Lind- 

 ley and Hutton's " Fossil Flora," under the title of Pinites Eggensis, 

 and that the authors of that work have considered it as differing " es- 

 sentially from any of the coal coniferae." This variance of opinion he 

 accounts for, by supposing that " their observations must have been 

 confined to the few fossil trees that have been found in the vicinity of 

 Newcastle." Mr Nicol remarks that these are destitute of annual layers, 

 and that, in that respect, they certainly differ from the Eigg fossil ; but 

 he adds that he found from examining specimens in the possession of Pro- 

 fessor Jameson, examples of fossilized wood derived from the great coal- 

 formation of New Holland, " so closely resembling that from Eigg, that 

 few could have distinguished the one from the other." On our visit to 

 Eigg, we procured several fine specimens of the fossilized wood ; those, 

 however, which we obtained are far inferior in size to a mass which we 

 observed at the farm-house of Kildonan (Mr Macdonald's) ; the one to 

 which we refer was about one foot in length, by one foot four inches in 

 circumference, and exhibited in one place a mark which was, in our opi- 

 nion, identical with the scar, which the breaking off of a branch would 

 have effected. Connected with the trap-rocks of Bloody Bay near To- 

 bermory in Mull, we found, in 1834, a wood-stone presenting much of 

 the external aspect of that of Eigg. These specimens we also subjected 

 to the "^notice of Mr Nicol, who microscopically examined them, and 

 published in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xviii, p. 335, 

 theresult of his observations. After giving a minute description of the 

 external characters of these fossils, Mr Nicol describes their struc- 

 tures as bearing on botanical details. He states that the several speci- 

 mens are to be referred only to one species, " that the medullary rays 

 are very similar in number, breadth, and extent, to those in some of 



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