Island of Scalpay. 139 
little regarded by the mineralogists of this country. It cannot, 
with any justice, be said, that the mountains, and hills, and cliffs 
of Scotland, are barren of simple minerals ; for the small portion 
of attention bestowed on their investigation, has proved, not on- 
ly that this is not the case, but, on the contrary, that our mineral 
formations promise, to the skilful and active explorer, as abun- 
dant a return as these of any other country in Europe. Let, 
then, some of our mineralogists devote themselves to that de- 
lightful occupation, the tracing out of simple minerals in our 
strata, beds, and veins, and ere long the mountains of Scotland 
will become as distinguished in mineralogy for the beauty and 
variety of their simple minerals, as they now are for the num- 
berless important geognostical relations which they exhibit. 
Already Professor Jameson has enumerated, in his mineral o- 
gical writings, the following gems as natives of Scotland, viz. 
Precious Beryl, Schorlite, Cinnamon- Stone, Zircon, Topaz, 
Garnet, and Amethyst *. Of these gems the schorlite and zir- 
con are the rarest. 
During a tour through the Hebrides last summer, I visited 
the lone and rugged regions of Harris, whose geognosy, like 
that of the whole of the dreary island range, named Long 
Island, we may say is almost unknown; for the vague and 
rambling notices published, contain little information, and that 
little not deserving of commendation, on the score either of ac- 
curacy or consistency. 
In a small island named Scalpay, situated on the east coast 
of Harris, I met with crystals of one of the rarer of the gems, — 
the Zircon. 
These were imbedded in a mass of chlorite, subordinate to 
gneiss, and in some parts of the rock were very numerous. The 
crystals are brown, inclining more or less to red. The follow- 
ing crystallizations were met with. 
1. Rectangular four-sided prism, sometimes slightly trunca- 
ted on the lateral edges, and generally acutely acuminated on 
each extremity by eight planes, of which two and two meet un- 
der very obtuse angles, and are set on the lateral planes of the 
— — ; — 
* Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles , 2 vols. 4to. ; System of Mineralogy , 3 vols. 
8 vo. ; Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society , vol. i. p.445 ; Manual 
of Mineralogy ; Annals of Philosophy ; and Edinburgh Philosophical Journal \ 
