Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/39

 shells is here included between two beds of quartz rock; unfortunately but a small quantity of the rock is exposed, and as it lies low on the shore it is impossible to trace the series to the extent which is desirable. As far as I could conjecture the quartz rock was a portion of the general series which alternates with the mica slate: if this be correct it offers a solitary example of a rock containing organized remains alternating with the series of mica slate, a fact as yet so anomalous that it must not be received without much more decided evidence than that which I have here produced. I have to regret that the loss of these specimens prevents me from describing the particular shells which I observed in this limestone; yet doubtful as this fact appears even to myself; it is somewhat countenanced by a circumstance not dissimilar which occurs near Borrereg on the side of Loch Eishort, where the white and crystalline quartz rock which alternates with the mica slate is found in one place alternating for a short space with the blue limestone and red sandstone, the two first and lowest members of the secondary strata. With every wish to find that I had committed an error in this examination I could not detect it, and must therefore suffer the whole to remain at present as I have stated it, an example at least of a most deceptive geological appearance if it shall not turn out to be an interesting fact.

The two associated rocks which I have here described are immediately followed by a regular succession of stratified rocks which I shall now proceed to detail; commencing at Loch Eishort, as being the principal point in which I observed their contact with the former, and from which I derived the clue to the order of succession of all the stratified rocks in Sky.

In distinguishing however the rocks which follow by the term stratified, I am far from meaning to say that I consider the mica