THE ISLAND OF AEEAlf. 119 



accommodation as can be now obtained, Arran is a deligbtful 

 summer residence ; ■were it to be generally built upon, it would 

 realise from ground-rents alone an annual fortune to Ms Grace 

 the Duke of Hamilton, who owns the greater part of it, and he 

 might have capital shooting into the bargain. 



Arran, I may state to all who are ignorant of the fact, is a 

 very paradise for geologists ; and amateur globe-makers — persons 

 who think they are better at constructing worlds than the 

 Great Architect who preceded them all — are particularly fond 

 of that island, being, as they suppose, quite able to find upon it" 

 materiel sufiScient for the erection of the largest possible 

 " theories." Figures, it is said, can be made to prove either 

 side of a cause ; so can stones. Each geologist can build up his 

 own pet world from the same set of rocks ; and so active 

 geologists proceed to stucco over with their own compositions — 

 " adumbrate " a friend calls the process — the sublime works of 

 the greatest of all designers. None of the sciences have given 

 rise to so much controversy as the science of geology. I make 

 no pretensions to much geologic knowledge, although I do know 

 a little more than the man who wondered if the granite boulders 

 which he saw on a brae-side were on their way up or down the 

 hill, and argued that it was a moot point. What I would like 

 to see would be a good work on geology, divested entirely of the 

 learned and scientific slang which usually makes such books 

 entirely useless to ninety-nine out of every hundred persons who 

 attempt to read them. I would like, moreover, a work that 

 would not bully us with a ready-made theory. 



We had been landed from the steamboat on a massive grey 

 boulder, on the sides of which, thick as was the atmosphere, we 

 observed dozens- of limpets and crowds of " buckles," and other 

 sea-ware, giving us token of ample employment when we could 

 obtain leisure for a more ininute survey of the rocks and stray 

 stones which sprinkle the searbeach of Oorry. In the meantime, 

 that is just after landing, the great, the momentous question on 

 this and every other Saturday night is — Is the inn full ? A 

 hurried scramble over the jagged stones, and a rush past the 

 very picturesque residence of Mr. Douglas' pigs, brought us to 

 the inn, and at once decided the question. Mrs. Jamison, the 

 landlady, shook her lawn-bedizened head — the inn, alas, was 

 full, overflowing in fact, for a gentleman had engaged the coach- 

 house ! It was feared, too, that every house in the village was 

 in a like predicament, and further inquiry soon confirmed this 



