Mineralogy of Sky. 23 



angle. Here the dark summits of the Cuchullin hills come in 

 view, and new features and new scenes arise to re-excite the interest 

 which so long an extent of an almost uniform character had suf- 

 fered to languish. 



Loch Scavig is an inlet of the sea about a mile in depth, formed 

 by the Cuchullin hills, which rise with all their spiry and naked 

 crags high towering above it. At the bottom of this bay they 

 descend suddenly into the sea, brown and bare, with scarcely a 

 spot of verdure to enliven their dark sides, the only semblance of 

 life they possess consisting in the motion of the few cascades which 

 foam down their rugged declivities. Points of detached rocks pro- 

 jecting into the sea from their base, produce foregrounds for the 

 use of the artist, and relieve that intense depth of shadow whiclj 

 seems ever to reign where the sun beams can scarcely find access. 

 But even the grandeur, the silence and desolation of this place arc 

 forgotten, when in a moment on turning the angle of a huge rock, 

 -the spectator enters on a scene which suspends the recollection of 

 all which had fascinated him before. He finds himself in a lone 

 valley surrounded by a wall of dark and naked rock, of which the 

 rugged summits are lost in the clouds, intercepting the light of day 

 and casting a twilight gloom over the seat of eternal repose. If 

 ever a sound disturbs this repose it is that of the wind which 

 whistles against the rocks, or of the cascade which rushes down 

 their sides ; if ever vestige of life is seen, it is the lone sea-gull 

 dipping its wing in the black still waters of Coruisk.* The valley 

 once closed behind the spectator, he sees no more its egress, and 

 calls to mind the tales of eastern fiction, where the victim of magic 



* Coruisk, the water of the mountain hollow, not.Coriskin. 



