sandstone have been eroded before the Silurian deposits had been laid upon them.

Sir Roderick also states that the most ancient stratified rock in Scotland, and, as far as he knows, in the British Isles, is the gneiss, which is exhibited in the north-western shores of Ross and Sutherland, where it forms the rugged basement of the whole stony superstructure. At Cape Wrath, and along the northwestern coast, this gneiss has everywhere the same grey hornblende basis, traversed by many veins of brightpink granite. It may be traced along the west shore of the Kyle of Durness; and near a little burn adjacent to the Ferry House the rock is charged with asbestos and actinolite.

Sir Roderick's visit last year to the Highlands enabled him not only to confirm his previous views, but to strengthen them. In a communication that he made to the Geological Society in November last, he says that Professor Ramsay and himself "not only saw no reason to depart from any of the views already published, but that they were enabled to strengthen them by laying down on a map a more correct outline of the formations than had hitherto been traced, by marking the principal faults, and by indicating clearly the transition upwards from the known Lower Silurian rocks into a superior micaceo-quartzose series (or the so-called "younger gneiss "), which is entirely dissevered from the

Old or Fundamental Gneiss. They further ascertained that, whenever eruptive rocks occurred, they did not interfere with or derange this ascending conformable Lower Silurian succession." Sir Roderick further expressed his opinion that the "mica slates, clay slates, and quartz rock of the southern Highlands, will probably be found to fall into the same Lower Silurian category as the rocks of Sutherland.*

These researches by our eminent Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, entirely upset the long entertained belief that the great mountainous masses of red conglomerate and sandstone of the west coast of Scotland are detached portions of the old red sandstone, and Mr. Peach's palæontological discoveries have enabled Sir Roderick Murchison to define the great unfossiliferous conglomerate masses of Sutherland as of Cambrian age, the quartzites and limestones as Lower Silurian, and the overlying micaceous and gneissose schists and flagstones as also of Silurian age.

And now let us go to Durin. The inn is two miles from the Cavern. We walk briskly, for the night is closing, and we know if there be rooms unoccupied that we shall be made thoroughly comfortable by that excellent landlady, Mrs. Ross.

* See Sir R. Murchison's New General Geological Map of the Highlands, just issued (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., May 1860).

CHAP. XX.

A Pattern Landlady. — The North Sea.- Far-out Head.- Kyle of Durness.-The Midges again.-Foinnebhein.-Vast Sheep Farm.Valley of Kerwick.-Grand View of the Atlantic.-Cape Wrath.— The Lighthouse. The Tower.-Lighthouse rules.-Short and Long Days.-Bad Situation of the Lighthouse.-Pharcological Science.Outside the Tower.-Magnificent View.--The Precipices.-Formation of Granites.-A Giddy Eyrie.-The Parph of Ancient Geographers. -Nature of Cape Wrath.-Measureless Caves.-The Surging Sea. -Numerous Wild Fowl.-A Storm on Cape Wrath.

YES, there was room. The inn, in fact, was guestless, and we met with a warm welcome from Mrs. Ross. Not that I wish you to suppose that Mrs. Ross would not at all times and seasons make you comfortable at Durin, but if you have travelled (and who has not in these days?) you know that landlords and landladies are very apt to measure their civility by the number of their guests. The tide of tourists had set southwards, and we had all the inn to ourselves; an advantage only to be enjoyed during the early or latter part of the

season.

On awaking I saw the North Sea spread out before

KYLE OF DURNESS.

231

me calm as a lake, and Far-out Head, which, as its name implies, stretches far into the sea, and does battle with the waves as they roll through the Firth.

As my friend's time was now running very short, in order to enable him to return to Tongue in the evening we hired a dog-cart from Mrs. Ross to take us to Cape Wrath and bring us back again. Under any circumstances, if you visit Cape Wrath you must return to Durin, as the road only extends to the Cape. So after an early breakfast, at which oat-cake did the duty of bread, we set off for the Kyle of Durness, which is about a mile from the inn. The time of high water rendered it necessary to take the dog-cart across the Kyle some hours before we started, and the horse had been ridden round the head of the Kyle, the ferry-boat not being adapted to take horses.

The Kyle of Durness is the most western estuary of the sea on the north of Scotland, nearly land-locked, and backed on the south by lofty mountains. It is a favourite resort of white trout and seals; companies of the Phoca Vituline may frequently be seen on the sandbanks at low water. The ferry (1,350 yards) lands you on the west side of the Kyle, in a charming little creek, festooned with a great variety of ferns and beech trees, which hang over the Kyle. Near this creek are the rocks which I mentioned as containing asbestos and actinolite. The scene is so beautiful that I sat down

while the horse was being harnessed to sketch it, but had scarcely opened my book before I was literally enveloped in a cloud of midges, whose attacks quickly put me to flight. Here, at all events, they were near water; indeed, I never saw them in such numbers nor so ferocious as on the Kyle of Durness; but all through Sutherland they are terrible scourges, rendering sketching a physical impossibility.

Nothing can be conceived wilder than the drive from Durness to Cape Wrath (eleven miles). The narrow road, excellent as usual, is carried across a vast tract of moor, so far from the coast that the sea is invisible, but while this is shut out you have grand views of Foinnebhein and Ben Spionnadh, lofty mountains southwest of the Kyle, that tower over the dusky moorland. Seven miles through a barren solitude of

Heather, mosses, 'mong frogs, and bogs, and fogs;
'Mongst craggy cliffs, and thunder battered hills,"

and we came to a cabin tenanted by a shepherd, the only dweller between Durin and Cape Wrath. For all this district is a vast sheep farm, and I question whether the most enterprising agriculturist with cart-loads of chemicals and composts could turn the land to a more profitable use than grazing sheep. Two more miles, and the scene undergoes a change. The road plunges into the valley of Kerwick, from whence you obtain a glimpse of the sea and of a very curious pillar-shaped