Charles Lapivorth. 



XXXV 



He began in 1882 at Durness where the evidence of the superposition 

 of the Eastern Schists on the fossiliferous rocks is conchisive ; but not 

 finding, in that region, a clue to the solution of the difficulty he soon 

 moved on to Eriboll, taking up his quarters on the east side of the loch 

 at a shepherd's house, near Heilem Fei'ry. Here he found what he 

 wanted; a succession of well stratified rocks divisible into zones suitable 

 for mapping purposes and a district in which the rock-exposures were 

 sufficiently numerous to enable the distribution of the different zones to 

 be recorded on his maps. It must be remembered that the fundamental 

 difference between the work of Lapworth and that of all previous 

 observers is, that he attacked the problem in the only way that it could 

 be satisfactorily dealt with ; namely, by geologically surveying the 

 district on maps sufficiently large in scale to bring out the extremely 

 complicated structure. His main work was done on the six-inch maps, 

 but in some areas this scale proved inadequate. 



At the end of the short summer holiday he had surveyed a consider- 

 able area, extending from Whiten Head to Eriboll House, in sufficient 

 detail to bring out the main structural features and to disprove the 

 theory of the upward succession from the unmetamorphosed fossiliferous 

 rocks to the crystalline schists. 



On returning home he began a series of articles in the ' Geological 

 Magazine ' (March, 1883), entitled " The Secret of the Highlands," stating 

 his general conclusions in the following words (p. 121) : — ■ 



" I believe that we have in the so-called metamorphic Silurian region 

 of the Highlands of Scotland a portion of an old mountain system, 

 formed of a complex of rock formations of very different geological ages. 

 These have been crushed and crumpled together by excessive lateral 

 pressure, locally inverted, profoundly dislocated, and partially meta- 

 morphosed. This mountain range, or plexus of ranges, which must have 

 been originally of the general type of those of the Alps or Alleghanies, 

 is of such vast geological antiquity that all its superior portions have 

 long since been removed by denudation, so that, as a general rule, only 

 its interior and most complicated portions are preserved to us. In the 

 area partly worked out by myself, the stratigraphical phenomena are 

 identical in character with those developed by Eogers, Suess, Heim, and 

 Brogger in extra-British mountain regions." This series of articles was 

 never completed for reasons that will appear later. 



In the following year (1883) he returned to his task, and my 

 acquaintance with him arose in this way. In the early summer of 

 that year the late Prof. J. F. Blake and I met Lapworth at Ehiconich, 

 in Sutherland, by accident, and went on with him to Durness, where 

 we found Peach and Horne, who were then beginning the official 

 geological survey of the district. Lapworth very kindly invited Blake 

 and myself to accompany him to Eriboll, an invitation which we gladly 

 accepted. On the way he called our attention to the unconformable 



