various parts of Scotland, 427 



TTiese mountains are succeeded by a very systematical arrangement 

 of consecutive rocks, terminating at length, on one side, in the 

 sandstone which forms the shore from the Cock to Brodick Bay, 

 and on the others, in various alternations of rocks, which it is 

 foreign to my purpose to describe. 



The granite of this group differs essentially in external features 

 from that of the central highlands, and it equally differs from it in 

 character, resembling almost precisely, in hand specimens, the well 

 known granite of Devon and Cornwall. 



Like that also it has the bedded appearance which in detached 

 parts so much resembles stratification, and has not unfrequently 

 been mistaken for it. If we were to be guided by the look of a single 

 rock or jutting mass, taken here or there, it would be very difficult 

 to avoid being misled by the impression of stratification which it 

 gives. But if we examine it in a wider view, we shall see that this 

 appearance is fallacious, and that the laminsc, rather than beds, in 

 which it is disposed, are placed in every possible direction ; exhibit- 

 ing even in the immediate neighbourhood of each other, an irrep-u- 

 larly tabular form, or lamellar texture, and not a stratified deposition. 

 It is not even possible that these masses should be portions of dis- 

 rupted strata, as their positions are complicated in a way in which 

 no subsidence, or other subsequent disturbance could have placed 

 them. At any rate it has no better claim to stratification than the 

 granite of Dartmoor and Cornwall — with these it must be classed 

 in geological as it is in mineralogical character. 



As the stratification of granite has been a subject of much con- 

 troversy, it is worth our while to examine those doubtful cases 

 which may be explained by other considerations, and to see what 

 analogies in the disposition of other rocks can be brought to bear 



3 H 2 



