BEN-NEVIS. 



339 



Along the stage of our progress upwards, now 

 described, specimens occur, which contain appa- 

 rent fragments. These obviously illustrate the 

 doctrine of cotemporaneous formation \ as the 

 Included matters exhibit only a different arrange- 

 ment of the component parts. The rock itself, 

 as we advance, afterwards begins to be somewhat 

 mixed with the substance of hornblende, not in 

 granular distinct concretions, but intimately dif- 

 fused throughout the base ; and this tinging 

 matter increasing in quantity, at last communi- 

 cates the blackish colour already noticed, as cha- 

 racterising the whole mass of the precipice and 

 summit. I formerly mentioned my expectation # , 

 that on this side I might find the junction, or ra- 

 ther transition into one another, of these differ- 

 ently coloured rocks ; which I had been unable to 

 discover, among the debris on the opposite shoul- 

 der of the mountain. In the lower part of the 

 glen, accordingly, the change may be discerned 

 in the face of the precipice, but the place of it is 

 inaccessible. At length, in toiling up the hollow, 

 to my great joy, I found the object of my search ; 

 nearly under a ledge of rocks, which crosses the as- 

 cent, betwixt the precipice arid the stream. — -Here, 

 in passing, the eye is arrested, and the mind fixed 

 in astonishment, by the first complete view of an 

 alpine scene, perhaps the noblest of its kind in the 

 British islands. 



'' Atitea, p. 332, 



y 2 



