o/ Ediiiburgh, Session 188 2-8 3. 213 
The soil everywhere consists, apparently, of the debris of volcanic 
rocks. 
But wherever the surface is cut through, as by water courses, 
small stones of a kind of granite, from 6 to 18 inches long, are 
found. 
Most of the walls on the island contain stones of this description 
gathered off the surface of the land. 
Near the Manse there is a wall and also a dam for water, at about 
221 feet above the sea, in which there are granite blocks from one to 
three feet in length. 
3. Boulders. 
1. The largest measured for size rests on the Scoor ridge, being 
feet long, 4 feet 3 inches broad, and the thickest part 4 feet. It 
is angular, and may be gneiss. It has a considerable vein of quartz 
in it. 
It is near the western extremity of the ridge, and on a part of 
the ridge which is lower than any other part, viz., 890 feet above 
the sea. 
It is close to the top of the ridge, on the slope facing the north, 
and so precariously posed, that the least agitation or concussion by 
ice, or even water, might be expected to topple it down hundreds 
of feet. 
2. There are other boulders of the same species of granite or gneiss, 
at heights of from 200 to 700 feet above the sea, on ground sloping 
from the Scoor ridge towards the N.E., and also from the opposite 
hill down towards a water channel. 
In a wall there are numbers of granite blocks of such a size as 
a strong man can lift. 
3. In the N.E. part of the island there is a granite boulder, dark 
in colour, of a larger size than any other. It is on the part of the 
hill sloping down towards the S.W., about 600 or 700 feet below 
the top of the hill, and about 300 feet above the sea. A rock very 
like that composing this boulder (Mr Macpherson states) he has seen 
on the shores of Loch Alsh, situated to the east of Skye, about 50 
miles north of Eigg. 
The boulders (Mr Macpherson states) “ are of every variety of 
gneiss and granite, some very dark, some very white, some red, some 
with little or no mica, some with a great deal.” 
