on,
that others, who shall have the opportunity, may be led to inquire, and
that thus the natural history of the earth may be enlarged, by a proper
investigation of its mineral operations.

With this view I have often considered our schistus mountains, both in
the north and south; but I never found any satisfactory appearance from
whence conclusions could be formed, whether for the question or against
it. The places I examined were those between the alpine countries and
the horizontal strata; here, indeed, I have frequently found a confused
mass, formed of the fragments of those alpine strata mixed with the
materials of the horizontal bodies; but not having seen the proper shape
and connection of those several deposits, I always suspended my judgment
with regard to the particular operations which might have been employed
in producing those appearances.

I had long looked for the immediate junction of the secondary or low
country strata with the alpine schistus, without finding it; the first
place in which I observed it was at the north end of the island of
Arran, at the mouth of Loch Ranza; it was upon the shore, where the
inclined strata appeared bare, being; washed by the sea. It was but a
very small part that I could see; but what appeared was most distinct.
Here the schistus and the sandstone strata both rise inclined at an
angle of about 45 deg.; but these primary and secondary strata were
inclined in almost opposite directions; and thus they met together like
the two sides of a _lambda_, or the rigging of a house, being a little
in disorder at the angle of their junction. From this situation of those
two different masses of strata, it is evidently impossible that either
of them could have been formed originally in that position; therefore, I
could not here learn in what state the schistus strata had been in when
those of the sand-stone, &c, had been superinduced.

Such was the state of my mind, in relation to that subject:, when at
Jedburgh upon a visit to a friend, after I had returned from Arran, and
wrote the history of that journey; I there considered myself as among
the horizontal strata which had first appeared after passing the Tweed,
and before arriving at the Tiviot. The strata there, as in Berwickshire,
which is their continuation to the east, are remarkably horizontal for
Scotland; and they consist of alternated beds of sand-stone and marl, or
argillaceous and micaceous strata. These horizontal strata