228 Dr Hibbert on the Limestone of Burdiehouse, 



deep waters, which pervade the intricate recesses of this spacious 

 grotto. 



From this vast submerged labyrinth, formed during the pro- 

 cess of quarrying, myriads of organic remains have, for fifty years 

 or more, been extracted, — only to be devoted to the kiln ! 



But this destruction is not without a precedent. 



When I accompanied a savant to the older excavations of 

 Burdiehouse, he pronounced the quarry, as well in reference to 

 its picturesque character as to the associations which it instantly 

 inspired, — a second Montmartre. — (See Plate V.) 



The famous Gypsum quarry of Paris certainly exhibits an 

 analogous instance of a prolonged destruction of organic remains, 

 which was not effectually resisted, until a Cuvier, supported by 

 all the aid which a government friendly to science could impart, 

 interfered, and, with the arm of power, stopped a ruthless anni- 

 hilation of organic remains fatal to our knowledge of the tertiary 

 history of our planet. 



In the present instance, the merit of a similar interposition, 

 which Geology will ever commemorate with gratitude, is due to 

 The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



NOTES TO SECTION XVII. 



In admiring the picturesque character of the old quarry grotto of Burdiehouse, 

 the imagination is liable to be carried beyond the precincts of sober philosophical 

 meditation, and, in reference to the osseous relics enshrined within its solid walls, to 

 even indulge in the phantasies which geology can but too readily conjure up. No- 

 thing seems wanting to complete the illusions which the grotto is calculated to excite, 

 except to connect them with an imaginary emergence from beneath its dark watery 

 recesses of the Genius of Fossil History, — the same Genius who has given inspi- 

 ration to a Woodward, a Cuvier, a Buckland, or an Agassiz, to whom, in a vi- 

 sionary mood, we may assign local attributes of personification, and whom we may 

 array in the costume of the carboniferous epoch, so well indicated by the fossil relics 

 of Burdiehouse. She may be armed, cap-a-pee, with a resplendent coat of mail 

 wrought from the hard and enamelled scales of the Megalichthys ; crowned with a 

 wreath of ferns, in which many fantastic species of the Sphenopteris are entwined ; 

 while in her grasp may be placed a magic wand, wrought from a jointed stem of the 



