disposed to shudder. We
wrought so hard at pail and pump,--the occasion, too, was one of so much
excitement, and tended so thoroughly to awaken our energies,--that I was
conscious, during the whole time, of an exhilaration of spirits rather
pleasurable than otherwise. My fancy was active, and active, strange as
the fact may seem, chiefly with ludicrous objects. Sailors tell
regarding the flying Dutchman, that he was a hard-headed captain of
Amsterdam, who, in a bad night and head wind, when all the other vessels
of his fleet were falling back on the port they had recently quitted,
obstinately swore that, rather than follow their example, he would keep
beating about till the day of judgment. And the Dutch captain, says the
story, was just taken at his word, and is beating about still. When
matters were at the worst with us, we got under the lea of the point of
Sleat. The promontory interposed between us and the roll of the sea; the
wind gradually took off; and, after having seen the water gaining fast
and steadily on us for considerably more than an hour, we, in turn,
began to gain on the water. It came ebbing out of drawers and beds, and
sunk downwards along pannels and table-legs,--a second retiring deluge;
and we entered Isle Ornsay with the cabin-floor all visible, and less
than two feet water in the hold. On the following morning, taking leave
of my friend the minister, I set off, on my return homewards, by the
Skye steamer, and reached Edinburgh on the evening of Saturday.

RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST;

OR,

TEN THOUSAND MILES OVER THE FOSSILIFEROUS
DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND.

RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST;

OR,

TEN THOUSAND MILES OVER THE FOSSILIFEROUS DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND.[10]

CHAPTER I.

Embarkation--A foundered Vessel--Lateness of the Harvest dependent
on the Geological character of the Soil--A Granite Harvest and an
Old Red Harvest--Cottages of Redstone and of Granite--Arable Soil
of Scotland the result of a Geological Grinding Agency--Locality of
the Famine of 1846--Mr. Longmuir's Fossils--Geology necessary to a
Theologian--Popularizers of Science when dangerous--"Constitution
of Man," and "Vestiges of Creation"--Atop of the Banff Coach--A
Geologist's Field Equipment--The trespassing "Stirk"--Silurian
Schists inlaid with Old Red--Bay of Gamrie how
formed--Gardenstone--Geological Free-masonry illustrated--How to
break an Ichthyolite Nodul