e rain had already broken, and was descending in torrents. We
had been thirsty in the hot sun, and had found the springs few and
scanty; but the boy now assured me, in very broken English, that we were
to get a great deal more water than would be good for us, and that it
might be advisable to get out of its way. And so, climbing to the top of
the cliffs, along a water-course, we reached the ridge, just as the fog
came rolling downwards from the peaked brow of the Storr into the flat
moory valley, and the melancholy lochans roughened and darkened in the
rain. We were both particularly wet ere we reached Portree.

In exploring our Scotch formations, I have had frequent occasion, in
Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and now once more in Skye, to pass over
ground described by Sir R. Murchison; and in every instance have I found
myself immensely his debtor. His descriptions possess the merit of being
true: they are simple outlines often, that leave much to be filled up by
after discovery; but, like those outlines of the skilful geographer that
fix the place of some island or strait, though they may not entirely
define it, they always indicate the exact position in the scale of the
formations to which they refer. They leave a good deal to be done in the
way of mapping out the interior of a deposit, if I may so speak; but
they leave nothing to be done in the way of ascertaining its place. The
work accomplished is _bona fide_ work,--actual, solid, not to be done
over again,--work such as could be achieved in only the school of Dr.
William Smith, the father of English Geology. I have found much to
admire, too, in the sections of Sir R. Murchison. His section of this
part of the coast, for example, strikes from the extreme northern part
of Skye to the island of Holm, thence to Scrapidale in Rasay, thence
along part of the coast of Scalpa, thence direct through the middle of
Pabba, and thence to the shore of the Bay of Laig. The line thus taken
includes, in regular sequence in the descending order, the whole Oolitic
deposits of the Hebrides, from the Cornbrash, with its overlying
fresh-water outliers of mayhap the Weald, down to where the Lower Lias
rests on the primary red sandstones of Sleat. It would have cost
M'Culloch less exploration to have written a volume than it must have
cost Sir R. Murchison to draw this single line; but the line once drawn,
is work done to the hands of all after explorers. I have followed
repeatedly in the