The County Geognosy and Mineralogy of Scotland (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...which has been arrived at on the first point is due to local amplifications, or local thinning away of the beds, not having been duly considered. As regards the second, he holds the opinion that the upper limestone bed occurs among the beds of the upper gneiss as distinguished from the quartzite. The argument that this so-called upper bed, the position of which is not pointed out except at one spot, has at others absolutely thinned off, is in its necessary consequences far from a satisfactory one; for while that argument might in itself be granted, it is stretching probability beyond all reasonable limits to require that the very characteristic rocks or series of rocks which accompany the lime, as seen at that one locality, as well as all the beds which intervene between it and the quartzite, should have likewise disappeared. The so-called upper lime of the quartzite has been searched for in several of what were considered likely spots for finding it or its associates, but wholly unsuccessfully. Were it not for the intervention of the gneissic beds, we should, however, admit that the amount of amplification or spreading out of the true limestone series is elsewhere so great, that comparatively little more would bring this upper lime within its bounds. The system is for miles of the long stretch of road between Knockan and the Loch Broom shore so condensed that it forms but a low elifi'y bank to one or other side of the road. Standing here upon the " upper gneiss," where its first beds lie upon the lime (there is here no upper quartzite), we can spring right over the low clifl', and light upon the road cut in the quartzite; or a little further south, standing upon the top of the quartzite, spring over its whole thickness of...