xxii PRAFACE TO THIRD SECTION 
for centuries provided the miners of Hungary and 
Transylvania with employment, and their rulers 
with wealth. Geological Societies are forming in 
different parts of the kingdom : the nation is 
therefore awake to the importance of such 
researches; and the most favourable opportu- 
nity is presented of multiplying the means of 
industry, and thereby opening new sources of 
wealth. The whole of the western coast o^ Scot- 
land, that is to say, the main land opposite to Skie, 
Rum, Canna, Egg, and Coll, from Loch Hourn to 
the head oi Loch Sunart, consists of metalliferous 
granite (gneiss), abounding in garnets, and other 
associations of metallic bodies. The strata of 
the islands of lona, Coll, Tyr-i, Rum, and Skie, 
consist oi syenite porphyry, hornblende slate, gneiss, 
pitchstone porphyry, trap, &c. ; and these are the 
matrices of ihe precious ores found in Hungary and 
Transylvania. The higher part of the Cuchullin 
mountains of the Isle of Skie, in particular, consist 
oi strata of the identical porphyry which is known 
to be metalliferous S lying upon basalt. The 
author carefully examined all those islands, and 
the opposite main land of Great Britain, before 
he undertook his last journey to the Continent ; 
( 1 ) The Saxum mstaWferum of Bom. 
