Dr. Mac Culloch on the Hill of Kinnonl. 231 



of Nature as they do the narrow operations of our own laboratories. 

 Till that be done, it is not only legitimate, but it is indispensible 

 for the purposes of accurate reasoning, to describe facts by their 

 most obvious analogies where we cannot pronounce on their na- 

 ture, to call that a mechanical arrangement in Nature which bears 

 a resemblance to mechanical arrangement in the products of art, 

 and to consider that only as the result of chemical action in Nature, 

 which is imitable by chemistry under the direction of art, or has 

 been demonstrated to be in other cases the result of chemical laws. 



It appears then that at Kinnoul portions of schist are found 

 presenting an obscure appearance of connection with the red 

 sandstone. It also appears that this rock exhibits but a small 

 portion of a bed, instead of that great and extensive continuity in 

 which it is generally disposed. And it is further seen that this 

 portion is entangled and almost surrounded by a mass of rock of a 

 peculiar aspect, which bears no mark of stratification or of mecha- 

 nical arrangement, and that it is much bent and contorted, so as to 

 be irregularly intermixed with the unstratified mass. Lastly, it is 

 to be remarked, that appearances of fracture as well as contortion 

 occur in the stratified rock ; that veins pass from it, and that frag- 

 ments of it are dispersed throughout the unstratified one ; as far 

 at least as a judgment can be formed from the only view we can 

 obtain of the imbedded portions. 



It is difficult to see on what other ground these and similar 

 appearances can be explained than on that of motion ; the action 

 of the unstratified on the stratified mass, and that stratified mass 

 existing in two different conditions, a state of softness capable of 

 extension, and a state of hardness capable of fracture. Further 

 than this the facts visible at Kinnoul do not perhaps bear us out, and 

 beyond this point it is not my design to venture, since the simplest 



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