72 Dr Hibbert on the Distribution 
Two or three miles to the south of Lunna, at the head of 
Lax Voe, may be noticed a small mass of sienite, together with 
associated strata of quartz and limestone. These rocks, like nu- 
clei, afford attachments to the strata of Lunna Ness ; and ac- 
cordingly we find, that in tracing the strata in a northerly di- 
rection from this, the most southerly point in which they occur, 
their course is continued in a direction of N. 12° or 15” E. to 
the extremity of Lunna Ness. Here the sea precludes a know- 
ledge of the rocks by which they are intercepted to the north ; 
but it is probable that the strata of Lunna Ness may be identi- 
fied with gneiss of a similar conglomerated structure, occurring 
in the island of Hascosea, or with the strata of Fetlar, which are 
intercepted by the serpentine of that island. 
The dip of the gneiss is to the west at various angles. 
A little more than a mile to the north of the mansion at 
Lunna, are two or three remarkable detached rocks, named the 
Stones of Stephis, Of these the largest is about twenty-three 
feet in height, and ninety-six feet in circumference. No objects 
of geological notice have excited greater attention than frag- 
ments of this nature, regarding the origin of which, scarcely any 
opinion can be offered more than amounts to mere surmise. 
In the present instance, it is to be conjectured, 1st, That 
these enormous detached masses cannot have undergone any 
very distant removal, since they repose on rocks of precisely a 
similar kind. Nor, in the 2d place, does it appear, that they 
have been loosened from rocks of a greater altitude, since they 
themselves occupy the most commanding site in their immedi- 
ate vicinity. In the 3d place. If we are inclined to consider 
them as the detached remains of a pre-existing rock, being the 
only parts which have escaped a decomposition by which the 
rest of the rock had been removed, still we must admit that 
such a disintegrating process must, to any perceptible extent, 
have long since ceased; since, of all rocks in Shetland, the 
stones in question, from the quantity of quartz, and the little 
felspar which they contain, are the least prone to decomposition. 
That such a detached state is, therefore, an original condition of 
the rock, I shall consider as the most rational conjecture, until 
such reasons, as are the result of a more advanced state of geo- 
logical science, can be brought forward to prove the contrary. 
At present, I am far from being convinced, that a state of cohe- 
