nsolidated in this manner. But this is only a
particular stratum; and the general appearance of the sand-stone, as
well as other strata in the coal countries, is that of having been
little affected by those subterranean operations of heat by which those
bodies in the alpine country have been changed in their structure,
shape, and position.

If we shall thus allow the principle of consolidation, consequently also
of induration, to have been much exerted upon the strata of the alpine
country, and but moderately or little upon those of the low country of
Scotland, we shall evidently see one reason, perhaps the only one, for
the lesser elevation of the one country above the level of the sea, than
the other. This is because the one resists the powers which have been
employed in leveling what has been raised from the bottom of the sea,
more than the other; consequently, we find more of the one remaining
above the level of the sea than of the other.

Let us now take the map of Scotland, in order to observe the mixture of
those two different species of countries, whereof the one is generally
low and flat, the other high and mountainous; the one more or less
provided with fossil coal, the other not.

From St Abb's Head, on the east of Scotland, to the Mull of Galloway,
on the west, there runs a ridge of mountains of granite, quartz, and
schistus strata, which contain not coal. On each side of this ridge we
find coal countries; Northumberland, on the one side, and, on the other,
the shires of Ayr, Lanark, and the Lothians; the one is a mountainous
country, the others are comparatively low or flat countries. Let us now
draw another alpine line from Buchan and Caithness, upon the east, to
the island of Jura, on the west; this traverses a mountainous country
destitute of coal, and, so far as I know, of any marks of marine bodies.
But, on each side of this great alpine ridge, we find the hard country
skirted with one which is lower, flatter, or of a softer nature,
in which coal is found, upon the one side, in the shires of Fife,
Clackmannan, and Stirling; and, on the other, in that hollow which runs
from the Murray Frith south-west, in a straight line, directed upon the
end of Mull, and composed, for the most part, of water very little above
the level of the sea. Here, to be sure, the coal is scarce, or not so
evident; but there is coal upon the sea coast in several places of this
great Bay betwixt Buchan and Caithness; and the low