The Cruise of the Betsey Part 13

[2] Professor Nicol of Aberdeen believes the Red Sandstones of the West Highlands are of Devonian age, and the quartzite and limestone of Lower Carboniferous.--_See Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, February 1857._--W.S.

[3] Sir R. Murchison considers these rocks Silurian. See "Quarterly Journal" of the Geological Society, Anniversary Address.

[4] Probably one of the Isastrea of Edwards.

[5] See a paper by the Rev. P.B. Brodie, on Lias Corals, "Edinburgh New Philosophic Journal," April, 1857.

[6] The verses here referred to are introduced into "My Schools and Schoolmasters," chapter tenth.

[7] For a description of this pond see "My Schools and Schoolmasters,"

chapter tenth.

[8] These remarks refer to the poem "On Seeing a Sun-Dial in a Churchyard," which was introduced here when these chapters were first published in the "Witness," but, having been afterwards inserted in the tenth chapter of "My Schools and Schoolmasters," is not here reproduced.

[9] Mr. Peach has discovered fossils in the Durness limestone, which rests above the quartzite rock of the west of Scotland, that covers the Red Sandstone long believed to be OLD RED. The fossils are very obscure.--W.S.S.

[10] This second t.i.tle hears reference to the extent of the author's geologic excursions in Scotland, during the nine years from 1840 to 1848 inclusive.

[11] Since the above was written, I have seen an interesting paper in "Hogg's Weekly Instructor," in which the Rev. Mr. Longmuir of Aberdeen describes a visit to the Lias clay at Blackpots. Mr. Longmuir seems to have given more time to his researches than I found it agreeable, in a very indifferent day to devote to mine; and his list of fossils is considerably longer. Their evidence, however, runs in exactly the same tract with that of the shorter list. He had been told at Banff that the clay contained "petrified tangles;" and the first organism shown him by the workmen, on his arrival at the deposit, were some of the "tangles"

in question. "These" he goes on to say, "we found, as may have already been antic.i.p.ated, to be pieces of Belemnites, well known on the other side of the Frith as 'thunderbolts,' and esteemed of sovereign efficacy in the cure of bewitched cattle." Though still wide of the mark, there is here an evident descent from the supernatural to the physical, from the superst.i.tious to the true. "Satisfied that we had a ma.s.s of Lias clay before us, we set vigorously to work, in order either to find additional characteristic fossils, or obtain data on which to form a conjecture as to the history of this out-of-the-way deposit; and our labor was not without its reward. We shall now present a brief account of the specimens we picked up. Observing a number of stones of different sizes, that had been thrown out, as they were struck, by the workman's shovel, we immediately commenced, and, like an inquisitor of old, knocked our victims on the head, that they might reveal their secrets; or, like a Roman haruspex, examined their interior,--not, however, to obtain a knowledge of the future, but only to take a peep into the past.

1. Here, then, we take up, not a regular Lias lime nodule, but what appears to have formed part of one; and the first blow has laid open part of a whorl of an Ammonite, which, when complete, must have measured three or four inches in diameter, and it is perfectly a.s.similated to the calcareous matrix. 2. Here is a ma.s.s of indurated clay; and a gentle blow has exposed part of two Ammonites, smaller than the former, but their sh.e.l.ls are white and powdery like chalk. 3. Another fragment is laid open; and there, quite unmistakably, lie the umbo and greater portion of the _Plagiostoma concentric.u.m_. 4. Another fragment of a granular gritty structure presents a considerable portion of the interior of one of the sh.e.l.ls of a Pecten, but whether the attached fragment is part of one of its ears, or of the other valve turned backward, is not so easily determined. 5. Here is a piece of Belemnite in limestone, and the fracture in the fossil presents the usual glistening planes of cleavage. 6. Next we take up a piece of distinctly laminated Lias, with Ammonites as thick as they can lie on the pages of this black book of natural history. 7. Once more we strike, and we have the cast and part of the sh.e.l.l of another bivalve; but the valves have been jerked off each other, and have suffered a severe compound fracture; nevertheless we can have little hesitation in p.r.o.nouncing it a species of _unio_. 8. Here is another piece of limestone, with its small fragment of another sh.e.l.l, of very delicate texture, with finely marked traverse striae. We are unwilling to decide on such slight evidence, but feel inclined to refer it to some species of Plagiostoma. 9. Here is a piece of pyrites, not quite so large as the first, and so vegetable-like in its markings, that it might be mistaken for part of a branch of a tree. This is also characteristic of the Lias; for when the shales are deeply impregnated with bitumen and pyrites, they undergo a slow combustion when heaped up with f.a.ggots and set on fire; and in the cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, after rainy weather, they sometimes spontaneously ignite, and continue to burn for several months. 10. As we pa.s.sed through the works, on our way to the clay, we observed a sort of reservoir, into which the clay, after being freed from its impurities, had been run in a liquid state; the water had evaporated, and the drying clay had cracked in every direction. Here we find its counterpart in this large ma.s.s of stone; only the clay here, mixed with a portion of lime is petrified, and the fissures filled up with carbonate of lime; thus forming the septaria, or cement stone. We have dressed a specimen of it for our guide, who has a friend that will polish it, when the dark Lias will be strikingly contrasted with the white lime, and form rather a pretty piece of natural mosaic. 11. Coming to a simple piece of machinery for removing fragments of shale and stone from the clay, we examined some of the bits so rejected, and found what we had no doubt were fish-scales. 12. We have yet to notice certain long slender bodies, outwardly brown, but inwardly nearly black, resembling whip-cord in size. Are we to regard these as specimens of a fucus, perhaps the _filum_, or allied to it, which is known in some places by the appropriate name of sea-laces? 13. Pa.s.sing on to the office, we were shown a chop of wood that had been found in the clay, and was destined for the Banff Museum. It is about eighteen inches in length, and half as much in breadth; and although evidently water-worn, yet we could count between twenty-five and thirty concentric rings on one of its ends, which not only enabled us to form some conjecture of its age previous to its overthrow, but also justified us in referring it to the coniferae of the _vorwelt_, or ancient world."

Mr. Longmuir makes the following shrewd remarks, in answering the question, "Whether have we here a ma.s.s of Lias clay, as originally deposited, or has it resulted from the breaking up of Lias-shale?" "The former alternative," says Mr. Longmuir, "we have heard, has been maintained; but we are inclined to adopt the latter, and that for the following reasons: 1. This clay, judging from other localities, is not _in situ_, but has every appearance of having been precipitated into a basin in the gneiss on which it rests, having apparently under it, although it is impossible to say to what extent, a bed of comminuted sh.e.l.ls. 2. The fossils are all fragmentary and water-worn. This is especially the case with regard to the Belemnites, the pieces averaging from one to two inches in length, no workman having ever found a complete specimen, such as occurs in the Lias-shale at Cromarty, in which they may be found nine inches in length. 3. But perhaps the most satisfactory proof, and one that in itself may be deemed sufficient, is the frequent occurrence of pieces of Lias-shale, with their embedded Ammonites; which clearly show that the Lias had been broken up, tossed about in some violent agitation of the sea, and churned into clay, just as some denudating process of a similar nature swept away the chalk of Aberdeenshire, leaving on many of its hills and plains the water-worn flints, with the characteristic fossils of the Cretaceous formation."

[12] A description of Miss Bond and of her "Letters" here referred to, is given in the fifth chapter of "My Schools and Schoolmasters."

[13] The story here referred to is narrated in "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland," chap. XXV.

[14] _Scaur_, Scotice, a precipice of clay. There is no single English word that conveys exactly the same idea.

[15] Mr. d.i.c.k has since disinterred from out the boulder-clays of the Burn of Freswick, _Patella vulgata_, _Buccinum undatum_, _Fesus antiquus_, _Rostellaria_, _Pes pelicana_, a _Natica_, _Lutraria_, and _Bala.n.u.s_.

[16] That similarity of condition in which the hazel and the harder cerealia thrive was noted by our north-country farmers of the old School, long ere it had been recorded by the botanist. Hence such remarks, familiarized into proverbs, as "A good _nut_ year's a good _ait_ year;" or, "As the _nut_ fills the _ait_ fills."

[17] For this story, see "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland,"

chap. XXV.

[18] "In the River St. Lawrence," says Sir Charles Lyell, "the loose ice acc.u.mulates on the shoals during the winter, at which season the water is low. The separate fragments of ice are readily frozen together in a climate where the temperature is sometimes thirty degrees below zero, and boulders become entangled with them; so that in the spring, when the river rises on the melting of the snow, the rocks are floated off, frequently conveying away the boulders to great distances. A single block of granite, fifteen feet long by ten feet both in width and height, and which could not contain less than fifteen hundred cubic feet of stone, was in this way moved down the river several hundred yards, during the late survey in 1837. Heavy anchors of ships, lying on the sh.o.r.e, have in like manner been closed in and removed. In October 1836, wooden stakes were driven several feet into the ground, at one point on the banks of the St. Lawrence, at high-water mark, and over them were piled many boulders as large as the united force of six men could roll.

The year after, all the boulders had disappeared, and others had arrived, and the stakes had been drawn out and carried away by the ice."--'Elements,' first edition, p. 138.

[19] The story of the Lady of Balconie and her keys is narrated in "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland." chap. XI.

[20] This mode is described in a traditionary story regarding a gigantic tribe of _Fions_, narrated in "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland," chap. IV.

[21] See "My Schools and Schoolmasters," chap XI.

[22] I can entertain no doubt that the angular groups of palatal teeth figured by Aga.s.siz and the Russian geologists as those of a supposed Placoid termed the Ctenodus, are in reality groups of the palatal teeth of Dipterus. In some of my specimens the frontal buckler of Polyphractus is connected with the gill-covers and scales of Dipterus, and bears in its palate what cannot he distinguished from the teeth of Ctenodus. The three genera resolve themselves into one.

[23] There is a very admirable remark to this effect in the "Travelling Memorandums" of the late Lord Gardenstone, which, as the work has been long out of print, and is now scarce, may be new to many of my readers: "It is certain, and demonstrated by the experience of ages and nations,"

says his Lordship, in referring to the old princ.i.p.alities of France, "that the government of petty princes is less favorable to the security and interests of society than the government of monarchs, who possess great and extensive territories. The race of great monarchs cannot possibly preserve a safe and undisturbed state of government, without many delegations of power and office to men of approved abilities and practical knowledge, who are subject to complaint during their administration, and responsible when it is at an end; or yet without an established system of laws and regulations; so that no inconsiderable degree of security and liberty to the subject is almost inseparable from, and essential to, the subsistence and duration of a great monarchy. But it is easy for petty princes to practise an arbitrary and irregular exercise of power, by which their people are reduced to a condition of miserable slavery. Indeed, very few of them, in the course of ages, are capable of conceiving any other means of maintaining the ostentatious state, the luxurious and indolent pride, which they mistake for greatness. I heartily wish that this observation and censure may not, in some instances, be applicable to great landed proprietors in some parts of Britain."--Travelling Memorandums, vol. i. p. 123. 1792.

[24] The exciting effects of a poor soil, or climate, or of severe usage, on the productive powers of various vegetable species, have been long and often remarked. Flavel describes, in one of his ingenious emblems, ill.u.s.trative of the influence of affliction on the Christian, an orchard tree, which had been beaten with sticks and stones, till it presented a sorely stunted and mutilated appearance; but which, while the fairer and more vigorous trees around it were rich in only leaves, was laden with fruit,--a direct consequence, it is shown, of the hard treatment to which it had been subjected. I have heard it told in a northern village, as a curious anecdote, that a large pear tree, which during a vigorous existence of nearly fifty years, had borne scarce a single pear, had, when in a state of decay, and for a few years previous to its death, borne immense crops of from two to three bolls each season. And the skilful gardener not unfrequently avails himself of the principle on which both phenomena seem to have occurred,--that exhibited in the beaten and that in the decaying tree,--in rendering his barren plants fruitful. He has recourse to it even when merely desirous of ascertaining the variety of pear or apple which some thriving sapling, slow in bearing, is yet to produce. Selecting some bough which may be conveniently lopped away without destroying the symmetry of the tree, he draws his knife across the bark, and inflicts on it a wound, from which, though death may not ensue for some two or three twelvemonths, it cannot ultimately recover. Next spring the wounded branch is found to bear its bunches of blossoms; the blossoms set into fruit; and while in the other portions of the plant all is vigorous and barren as before, the dying part of it, as if sobered by the near prospect of dissolution, is found fulfilling the proper end of its existence. Soil and climate, too, exert, it has been often remarked, a similar influence. In the united parishes of Kirkmichael and Culicuden, in the immediate neighborhood of Cromarty, much of the soil is cold and poor, and the exposure ungenial; and "in most parts, where hardwood has been planted," says the Rev. Mr.

Sage of Resolis, in his "Statistical Account," "it is stinted in its growth, and bark-bound. Comparatively young trees of ash," he shrewdly adds, "_are covered with seed_,--_an almost infallible sign that their natural growth is checked_. The leaves, too, fall off about the beginning of September."