King and Rowney— On Serpentine Marble or Ophite of Skye. 135 
Thus, weighing all the facts and considerations that have been ad- 
duced, we are compelled to reject the view to which Dr. Sterry Hunt 
is inclined, and to accept the one long ago advocated by Macculloch 
and Geikie.* The two following conclusions are the legitimate expres- 
sions of the old view. 
1st. That the ophite of Skye is an altered rock of the Liassic 
period. 
2nd. That igneous action, developing a granitic rock, and produc- 
ing decided metamorphism in an adjacent deposit, has operated at a 
later geological period in Skye than in any other part of the British 
Islands. 
Geologists, it is true, are already acquainted with a comparatively 
modern granitic formation in Arran and Devonshire ; but the evidences 
bearing on these cases go no furthur than to show that the former is 
post-Carboniferous, and that the latter is probably pre-Triassic. IN'ow, 
however, a rock of the same class may be pointed out that can only be 
considered to have been developed during some post-Liassic period. 
SECOND PAST. 
The serpentine appears to be rare at Camus Smalaig ; and it is not 
common at Torrin. But near the Manse at Kilbride, about half a mile 
inland, serpentinous marble seems to be rather abundant ; as blocks of 
true ophite are common in the old walls about the place. The serpen- 
tine generally occurs in thin anastomosing parallel layers, averaging 
an eighth of an inch in thickness, alternating with plates of corres- 
ponding thickness composed of calcite. Both are often sharply and 
complexly crumpled ; and in many cases they are seen concentrically 
curling round concretion-like nuclei of compact serpentine, or other 
mineral silicates, in which, the calcareous plates disappearing, the 
siliceous layers lose their individuality. 
In its laminated portions, the Skye marble remarkably resembles 
the celebrated eozoonal" ophite of Canada — more bo in this respect 
than the corresponding rock, common in Connemara. Figure 2, pi. xiv. 
(Science), represents a portion of a large block, in which the laminae, 
singularly curved, are well displayed. As in other cases that are 
known to us, the concentric arrangement of the laminae around nuclei 
is more suggestive of a superinduced than a depositional origin. 
It will be recollected by those who have made themselves acquainted 
with the discussion, so rife of late years, respecting the so-called 
Eozoon Canadense,^'' that, in our memoirs on the subject, we have de- 
scribed and figured certain microscopic structures observed in a small 
piece of Skye ophite, evidently from the Kilbride district, which was 
* M. Geikie, in a memoir published subsequently to the one we have already 
referred to, observes that " some parts of the metamorphic limestone of Strath may 
possibly be Silurian'' ("Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc," vol. xvii., p. 200); but we take 
this observation to apply to a calcareous rock, which occurs near Heast on Loch 
Eishort. 
