ion."
My love of knowledge has not carried me altogether so far, chiefly, I
dare say, because my voyaging opportunities have not been quite so
great. Ever since my ramble of last year, however, I have felt, I am
afraid, a not less interest in the geologic antiquities of Small Isles
than that cherished by "Spectator" with respect to the comparatively
modern antiquities of Egypt; and as, in a late journey to these islands
the object of my visit involved but a single point, nearly as insulated
as the dimensions of a pyramid, I think I cannot do better than shelter
myself under the authority of the short-faced gentleman who wrote
articles in the reign of Queen Anne. I had found in Eigg, in
considerable abundance and fine keeping, reptile remains of the Oolite;
but they had occurred in merely rolled masses, scattered along the
beach. I had not discovered the bed in which they had been originally
deposited, and could neither tell its place in the system, nor its
relation to the other rocks of the island. The discovery was but a
half-discovery,--the half of a broken medal, with the date on the
missing portion. And so, immediately after the rising of the General
Assembly in June last [1845], I set out to revisit Small Isles,
accompanied by my friend Mr. Swanson, with the determination of
acquainting myself with the burial-place of the old Oolitic reptiles, if
it lay anywhere open to the light.

We found the Betsey riding in the anchoring ground at Isle Ornsay, in
her foul-weather dishabille, with her topmast struck and in the yard,
and her cordage and sides exhibiting in their weathered aspect the
influence of the bleaching rains and winds of the previous winter. She
was at once in an undress and getting old, and, as seen from the shore
through rain and spray,--for the weather was coarse and boisterous,--she
had apparently gained as little in her good looks from either
circumstance as most other ladies do. We lay storm-bound for three days
at Isle Ornsay, watching from the window of Mr. Swanson's dwelling the
incessant showers sweeping down the loch. On the morning of Saturday,
the gale, though still blowing right ahead, had moderated; the minister
was anxious to visit this island charge, after his absence of several
weeks from them at the Assembly; and I, more than half afraid that my
term of furlough might expire ere I had reached my proposed scene of
exploration, was as anxious as he; and so we both resolved, come what
migh