&52 Rev. Dr Fleming^ Gleanings of Natural History 
crawling about, and, by a sudden push with their nose, detach 
them from the rock for food. Should the first effort fail, an- 
other is never attempted against the same individual, now warn- 
ed, and adhering closely to the rock ; but the rat proceeds in- 
stantly to others still off their guard, until enough of food has 
been procured. 
On the 14th, we bore away for Loch Broom, but touched on 
the forenoon at the Shiant Isles. We landed on the north side of 
Gariveilan, near the mural promontory of columnar greenstone. 
The rocks in this neighbourhood consist of slightly inclined and 
alternating strata of greenstone, trap-tuff of different kinds, 
highly calcareous, and containing Belemnites and flinty-slate, 
the characters of all of which have been minutely described by Dr 
MacCulloch in his 44 Western Isles f vol. i. p. 439- Guided 
by directions which I had received from Mr Neill, I soon met 
with the Wavellite, which he found here, and for the first time 
in Scotland, when making a similar voyage round the north of 
Scotland in 1811. Wavellite seems to be a recent production, 
as it forms a thin coating of cellular discs, not only on the sur- 
face of the flinty slate at the fissures, but on the surface of the 
detached masses which occur in these fissures. Towards the 
east side, in the high cliffs, we perceived indications of beds of 
iron-clay, and some dark-coloured stripes, which were probably 
beds of wood-coal. To the cliffs of these islands the more ordi- 
nary sea-fowl resort in great numbers to breed. The puffins 
were abundant. 
We came to anchor in Loch Broom in the evening of the 15th, 
opposite to the village of Ullapool, an establishment once flour- 
ishing while the herrings frequented this part of the loch, but 
now quickly depopulating, since these fish have changed, in this 
neighbourhood, the route of their migrations. The village is 
built on a platform of stratified fresh-water gravel, considerably 
elevated above the present rise of the tides, and which must 
have been formed at a period when Loch Broom was a fresh- 
water lake, with its surface elevated considerably above the 
level of the sea, and previous to its junction therewith. 
In ascending the high ground on the south-east side of the 
bay, sandstone rocks were observed regularly stratified, and ha- 
ving a S.E. dip. Nearest the shore, quartzy sandstone prevails, 
