SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 
125 
another agency many thousands of years ago. Its round, 
polished appearance is due to the action of water, and it is 
quite possible that may have been by the salt sea waves." 
This explanation is evidently taken as a bit of romance. 
But here our conversation ceases, for at this moment our 
eyes are again cast upon the stones, and to our great 
astonishment we discover, amongst other trophies from the 
mine, about a dozen fossil specimens, in splendid order, of 
the anthricosa acuta— one of the families commonly called 
gurrachans here in the west; but the shells are smaller 
and more triangular in shape than those presently found 
FOSSIL ANTHRICOSA ACUTA. 
upon our shores. "Would you part with one or two of 
these ? " is our request from the good lady. Ye can tak' 
them a', if ye like," is her smiling reply, without even a 
hint of dropping a copper to the interested urchins who 
now surround us. But our prize is too great a one not to 
keep the urchins in remembrance of it, so we secure it in 
triumph by possessing ourselves of three of the most perfect 
specimens of the lot. Trifling in themselves do these fossil 
shells appear; but what a story of old, old Scotland do 
they bring us from the depths of the mine — of old, old 
Scotland through the misty ages of antiquity. Hugh Miller, 
in his "Cruise of the Betsy," says: — "Judging from its 
I 
