ingenious labors, the vital energies failed within him, and
he broke down and died. The useless canon lived on. The French
Revolution broke out; the republican army invested Maestricht; the
batteries were opened; and shot and shell fell thick on the devoted
city. But in one especial quarter there alighted neither shot nor shell.
All was safe around the canon's house. Ordinary relics would have
availed him nothing in the circumstances,--no, not "the three kings of
Cologne," had he possessed the three kings entire, or the jaw-bones of
the "eleven thousand virgins;" but there was virtue in the jaw-bones of
the Mosasaurus, and safety in their neighborhood. The French _savans_,
like all the other _savans_ of Europe, had heard of Hoffmann's fossil,
and the French artillery had been directed to play wide of the place
where it lay. Maestricht surrendered; the fossil was found secreted in a
vault, and sent away to the _Jardin des Plantes_ at Paris, maugre the
canon, to delight there the heart of Cuvier; and the French, generously
addressing themselves to the heirs of Hoffmann as its legitimate owners,
made over to them a considerable sum of money as its price. They
reversed the finding of the Maestricht judges; and all save the monks of
St. Peter's have acquiesced in the justice of the decision.

CHAPTER VI.

Something for Non-geologists--Man Destructive--A Better and Last
Creation coming--A Rainy Sabbath--The Meeting House--The
Congregation--The Sermon in Gaelic--The Old Wondrous Story--The
Drunken Minister of Eigg--Presbyterianism without Life--Dr.
Johnson's Account of the Conversion of the People of Rum--Romanism
at Eigg--The Two Boys--The Freebooter of Eigg--Voyage Resumed--The
Homeless Minister--Harbor of Isle Ornsay--Interesting Gneiss
Deposit--A Norwegian Keep--Gneiss at Knock--Curious
Chemistry--Sea-cliffs beyond Portsea--The Goblin Luidag--Scenery of
Skye.

I reckon among my readers a class of non-geologists, who think my
geological chapters would be less dull if I left out the geology; and
another class of semi-geologists, who say there was decidedly too much
geology in my last. With the present chapter, as there threatens to be
an utter lack of science in the earlier half of it, and very little, if
any, in the latter half, I trust both classes may be in some degree
satisfied. It will bear reference to but the existing system of
things,--assuredly not the la