of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 633 
fly for safety to the little rock-girt lagoon, which is cinctured by its 
clustering rocks. 
There are two Hyskiers, — one outside Long Island, the other 
inside. Both are famous for their seals, and both are “ rude ” 
enough, if that word was used by Sir Walter to express roughness. 
It is the inner Hyskier that is the subject of these remarks. It is 
about 9 miles from the nearest land of Canna, with a deep-water 
channel all round. It consists of a group of skerries, almost united 
at low water. 
Upon landing, myriads of boulders of every variety of rock were 
seen; and the writer at once recognised the pitchstone porphyry of 
the Scuir of Eigg, as the rock upon which the boulders lay. The 
whole clustre of skerries is formed of the same rock; which, both 
in the dun grey of its tone of colour, in the proportional quantity 
of crystals of imbedded sanidine — and in the size of its basaltic 
pillars, is unmistakably the same rock as that of the Scuir. This is 
a markedly characteristic one; — one which, in fact, is distinct from 
all other pitchstones of Scotland. 
Standing on these skerries, the eye looks directly on the truncated 
end of the Scuir, which is about 22 miles distant. It ranges also 
somewhat along its southern flank, as the course of the ancient river 
of Eigg had been a tortuous one. But its last convolution on that 
island was a flexure somewhat more southerly in its direction than 
its general course. This direction threw it clear of the south of 
Bum, and pointed very much to the solitary cluster of pitchstone 
islets of Hyskier. 
The most southerly skerry of the cluster is separated from that 
nearest to it by a deep wall-sided channel. This, to appearance, 
was about 4 or 5 fathoms in depth; and the mural cliffs in each 
side rose to a height of about 23 feet. (It was low water at the 
time.) The channel was perfectly straight in its course. At first 
sight it resembles a washed-out dyke. With the knowledge we 
have, however, of the nature of the Scuir, it very much more 
probably represents what had been a wall-sided islet, which stood 
midstream in the ancient river; its amygdaloids and tuffs having 
now been sapped out by the surf, as have the old river banks and 
the surrounding land. 
