ther deposit could have exhibited. The
excavations are of considerable depth and extent,--hollows out of which
the materials of pyramids might have been taken. The precipitous sides
are fretted by jutting ridges and receding inflections, that present in
abundance their diversified alternations of light and shadow. The steep
descents form cycloid curves, that flatten at their bases, and over
which the ferruginous stratum of mould atop projects like a cornice.
Between neighboring excavations there stand up dividing walls, tall and
thin as those of our city buildings, and in some cases broken at their
upper edges into rows of sharp pinnacles or inaccessible turf-coped
turrets; while at the bottom of the hollows, washed by the runnels
which, in the slow lapse of years, have been the architects of the
whole, we find cairn-like accumulations of water-rolled stones,--the
disengaged pebbles and boulders of the deposit. The boulders and pebbles
project also from the steep sides, at all heights and of all sizes,
like the primary masses inclosed in our ancient conglomerates, when
exhibited in wave-worn precipices,--forcing upon the mind the conclusion
that the boulder-clay is itself but an unconsolidated conglomerate of
the later periods, which occupies nearly the same relative position to
the existing vegetable mould, with all its recent productions, that the
great conglomerate of the Old Red Sandstone occupies in relation to the
lower ichthyolite beds of that system, with their numerous extinct
organisms. But its buried stones are fretted with hieroglyphic
inscriptions, in the form of strange scratchings and polishings,
grooves, ridges, and furrows,--always associated with the
boulder-clays,--which those of the more ancient conglomerates want, and
which, though difficult to read, seem at length to be yielding up the
story which they record. Of this, however, more anon. Viewed by
moonlight, when the pale red of the clay where the beam falls direct is
relieved by the intense shadows, these excavations of the valley of
Rosemarkie form scenes of strange and ghostly wildness: the projecting,
buttress-like angles,--the broken walls,--the curved inflections,--the
pointed pinnacles,--the turrets, with their masses of projecting
coping,--the utter lack of vegetation, save where the heath and the
furze rustle far above,--all combine to form assemblages of dreary
ruins, amid which, in the solitude of night, one almost expects to see
spirits