The Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist
Controversy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh Miller. Robert
Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. Ami Boué. The life of
a field-geologist. Experiences of a geologist in the West
Highlands. A crofter home in Skye. The Spar Cave and Coruisk.
Night in Loch Scavaig.
As it has been in pursuit of geological investigation that I have been
enabled to see so much of Scotland, I hope the reader will not think it
inappropriate that a few of the pages of this volume of reminiscences
should be devoted to some recollections of Scottish geologists, more
especially of those with whom I have been personally acquainted,
and to some illustrations of my own experiences of the life of a
field-geologist in Scotland. Let me preface this chapter with a brief
reference to the rise of the Scottish School of Geology.
[Sidenote: THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF GEOLOGY]
The intellectual society for which Edinburgh was distinguished in the
later decades of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth
century, besides its brilliant company of literary men, included
also some of the founders of modern science. To three of these men
reference has already been made--Joseph Black, one of the pioneers
of modern chemistry; James Hutton, the father of modern physical
geology; and John Playfair, who first revealed to the general public
the far-reaching scope of Hutton’s philosophy. With these illustrious
men there was likewise associated Sir James Hall of Dunglass, who
introduced experimental research as a potent method of testing
geological speculation. A striking characteristic of this group of men
was shown in their indifference to the opinion of the world outside,
and to the making of converts to their views. It was not until some
years after Hutton’s death in 1797 that his teaching was recognised as
the initiation of a new school of thought, which bade fair to rival or
even to supersede that of Werner at Freiberg, who was then attracting
pupils from all parts of the world. This Scottish school, inasmuch as
it laid great stress on the importance taken by the internal heat of
the earth in geological history, came to be known as the Vulcanist.
While these men were at work in Scotland, by a curious irony of fate
one of Werner’s most distinguished pupils returned to Edinburgh,
and in 1804 was appointed to the Chair of Natural History in the
University there. Robert Jameson, like the other disciples of the Saxon
teacher, was fired with zeal to spread the doctrines of his master,
and as these doctrines were diametrically opposed to those of Hutton,
there began a lively controversy which for a number of years had its
chief battlefield in the Scottish metropolis. Werner claimed that
by far the most important part in the history of the earth had been
taken by water. His system was accordingly known as the Neptunist.
It is difficult now to realise the fierceness of this warfare. The
rocks round Edinburgh were appealed to with equal confidence by both
sides, and many a lively discussion arose upon them. After a good
many years, however, Jameson came to see that his master’s theory
offered but a partial explanation of the phenomena of nature, and
that essentially the Vulcanists were right. He publicly recanted his
early opinions, and the defection of their leading protagonist led
to the extinction of the Scottish Neptunists. With the dying out of
the fires of controversy, a kind of languor seems to have settled
down upon the progress of geological science in Scotland. There was
no longer an active resident school of geologists, and though many
Scotsmen had acquired renown as geologists, it was mainly by work in
other countries, rather than in their own. In an address which he
gave to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1862, James David Forbes
expressed himself as follows: ‘It is a fact which admits of no doubt,
that the Scottish Geological School, which once made Edinburgh famous,
especially when the Vulcanist and Neptunian war raged simultaneously
in the hall of this Society and in the class-rooms of the University,
may almost be said to have been transported bodily to Burlington House
[London]. Roderick Murchison, Charles Lyell, Leonard Horner, are
Scottish names, and the bearers of them are Scottish in everything
save residence.... Our younger men are drafted off as soon as their
acquirements become known.... Of all the changes which have befallen
Scottish science during the last half-century, that which I most deeply
deplore, and at the same time wonder at, is the progressive decay of
our once illustrious Geological School. Centralisation may account for
it in part, but not entirely.’[38]
Notwithstanding this somewhat gloomy retrospect, there were still
a few able men in Scotland, who continued to hold aloft the torch
of geological progress. The illustrious Principal Forbes himself
was widely known to the geological world for his researches on the
glaciers of the Alps and of Norway, and on Earth-temperature. As one
saw him in the street or in the class-room, he looked singularly
fragile, and it was not easy to realise how such a seemingly frail
body could have undergone the physical exertion required for his
notable Alpine ascents. His tall spare figure might be seen striding
from the University to the rooms of the Royal Society, of which for
many years he was the active Secretary. His clear brown eyes wore a
wistful expression, and his pale face and sunken cheeks showed how his
well-chiselled features had been preyed on by serious illness. Round
his long neck he always wore one of the large neckcloths then in vogue,
and above this, when out of doors, he carried a thick muffler, from
under which, as one passed him, one might hear now and then the cough
that told of the malady from which he was suffering. In his own house,
especially when showing some of the beautifully artistic water-colour
drawings which he had made in the course of his wanderings, the thin,
white, almost transparent, hands told the same tale of suffering.
And yet, in spite of all these visible signs of increasing bodily
feebleness, his mind remained to the last clear and bright, his memory,
even for minute details, perfect, his interest in men and things, more
particularly in scientific progress, as keen as ever, and his kindly
helpfulness to those whom he could assist as prompt and effective as
of old. He was one of the most beautiful and interesting personalities
whom I have ever known.
[Sidenote: SCOTTISH GEOLOGISTS]
Two of the ablest resident Scottish geologists were editors of leading
Edinburgh newspapers--Charles Maclaren and Hugh Miller--and to both of
them science was the recreation of such leisure hours as they could
snatch from literary labour and political controversy. Maclaren was
the founder, and for a quarter of a century, editor of the _Scotsman_,
from which, as far back as 1845, he had retired to spend his later
years in a delightful retreat on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh.
His editorial task had been relieved by many a pleasant geological
excursion among the rocks around that city, and he had worked out the
volcanic history of the district with a minuteness, accuracy, and
breadth of view which no one had attempted before him. After passing
the results of his researches through the columns of his newspaper, he
collected them into a small volume entitled _Geology of Fife and the
Lothians_, which, though little known to the general reader, has long
ago taken its place among the classics of Scottish geology.
Maclaren had acquired a command of clear, forcible English, and was a
great admirer of good style in literature. I remember a conversation
with him, in which he enlarged on the tendency of the age to pile
up intensitives in description, both in ordinary conversation and
in writing. The words ‘awful’ and ‘awfully’ were then beginning to
come into vogue in the familiar slang. He strongly objected to such
tasteless misuse of terms, holding with Pope that expletives give but
a feeble aid in composition. ‘Take my advice,’ he said, ‘after the
experience of a long life, and be careful to strike out the word “very”
in almost every place where you find it in your manuscript. You will
discover that this excision will really strengthen your style, in the
same proportion that the frequent repetition of the word would weaken
it.’
[Sidenote: HUGH MILLER]
Hugh Miller, as editor of the _Witness_ newspaper, the accredited organ
of the Free Church, was one of the living forces of Scotland during the
last sixteen years of his life. He threw himself with great ardour into
all the controversies, political and ecclesiastical, of the time, and
his articles were read with eager interest from one end of the country
to the other. His establishment in the editorial chair, however, and
the consciousness of the influence which his pen enabled him to wield
over the minds of his fellow-countrymen, never led him to put into the
background the fact that he had been a journeyman mason. His appearance
on the streets was certainly most uneditorial. Above the middle
height, strongly built, with broad shoulders, a shock of sandy hair,
large bushy whiskers, and dressed in rough tweeds, with a shepherd’s
plaid across his shoulder, he might have been taken for one of the
hill-farmers who, on market days, come to Edinburgh from the uplands
of the Lothians. He had the true ‘Highlandman’s ling’--the elastic,
springy and swift step of the mountaineer, accustomed to traverse
shaking bog and rough moor. As he swung down the North Bridge, wielding
a stout walking stick, looking straight before him, his eyes apparently
fixed on vacancy and his lips compressed, one could hardly help turning
to look after him and to wonder what manner of man he could be. His,
however, was a familiar figure on the line of streets and roads that
led from the _Witness_ office to his home in Portobello. His fellow
citizens were proud of him as one of their literary lions, who had
also made for himself in science a name which was known all over the
English-speaking world.
[Sidenote: HUGH MILLER]
To Hugh Miller I owe much, and am glad of every opportunity of
acknowledging my indebtedness. His _Old Red Sandstone_ kindled in
me, as it has done in so many others, an enthusiasm for the science
to which he devoted his leisure hours, and an admiration for the
well of English undefiled to be found in every page of his writing.
He personally encouraged me in my earliest efforts at original
observation. He introduced me to Murchison, and thus opened the way for
my entry into the Geological Survey.
At the end of each summer we met at his house to talk over the results
of our geological wanderings. The last note I had from him, written
on 9th October, 1856, only a few weeks before his sudden and tragic
end, asked me to ‘drop in upon him on the evening of Saturday first,
and have a quiet cup of tea.’ He added, ‘my explorations this season
have been chiefly in the Pleistocene and the Old Red. I have now got
boreal shells in the very middle of Scotland, about equally removed
from the eastern and western seas. But the details of our respective
explorations we shall discuss at our meeting.’ That discussion duly
took place, and full of interest it was to me. He displayed on the
table the shells he had gathered, and he looked forward with keen
pleasure to the task of describing them, and showing the important
bearing they had on the geological history of the country. It proved
to be his last excursion, as that evening was also the last of our
intercourse, for before the end of the year I followed him to his
resting place, near to his great hero Chalmers, in the Grange Cemetery.
Another literary man in Edinburgh who had also made some interesting
contributions to geology was Robert Chambers. He especially concerned
himself with the later phases of geological history, more particularly
the proofs that Britain had been overspread with ice, and that
important changes of level had taken place along the coasts of Scotland
and northern Norway. He was also generally believed to be the author of
the famous _Vestiges of Creation_--a belief which was fully confirmed
after his death. When he heard that I purposed to become a member of
the Geological Survey he gave me, I remember, an account of a recent
excursion which he had made with a party of the Survey in North Wales.
‘Being the oldest member of the company,’ he said, ‘I was voted into
the chair, and had to carve. A leg of Welsh mutton was placed before
me, from which I was kept supplying the demands of the geologists,
until there was nothing left on the dish but a bare bone. So if
you join the Survey, my young friend, you must be prepared for the
development of a portentous appetite.’
[Sidenote: CHAMBERS, FLEMING, NICOL]
The house of Robert Chambers in Edinburgh was one of the chief centres
at which literary and scientific strangers met the intellectual society
of the town. He was an excellent host. His fund of anecdote and
reminiscence went back to near the beginning of the century. When no
more than twenty years of age he had published a volume illustrative of
the Waverley novels, followed next year by two volumes of _Traditions
of Edinburgh_, which astonished Scott, who wondered where the boy could
have picked up all the information.
Besides the geologists here enumerated there were others contemporary
with them who did good service, but with whom my acquaintance was too
slight to furnish me now with any personal reminiscences of them.
Dr. John Fleming, author of the well-known _Philosophy of Zoology_,
was trained as a Wernerian, and never quite adopted the views of
modern geologists. I remember him as a tall rather grim figure, full
of personal kindness, and gifted with keen critical power. He seemed
never to be happier than when he had an opportunity of exercising that
power in sarcastically demolishing the arguments of those to whom he
was opposed. James Nicol, after he became Professor in Aberdeen in
1853, devoted himself with much enthusiasm and success to the study of
the Highland rocks, and I only met him occasionally at the meetings
of the British Association, where his tall figure, his abundant
sandy-coloured hair, and pronounced south-country accent, made him a
prominent personage.
In the early decades of last century a few students from foreign
countries were attracted to Scotland for the purpose of examining the
rocks, which since the days of the Huttonian and Wernerian controversy
had become famous on the Continent. In my journeys abroad I met three
of these veterans, each of whom retained a vivid recollection of his
stay in this country.
W. Haidinger, who was long at the head of the Austrian Geological
Survey and Museum in Vienna, had established his reputation as an able
mineralogist, and came to Scotland to study the various cabinets of
minerals, public and private, to be found in the country. When I saw
him in Vienna in 1869, he had retired from all official duties, and as
he sat in his study, surrounded with his books and papers, presented a
singularly picturesque appearance, not unlike that in which Faust is
usually represented on the stage before transformation into youth by
Mephistopheles. Enveloped in a long dressing gown, he sat in an easy
chair, his white beard flowing down his breast, and his head covered
with an equal exuberance of snowy hair (which, however, was said to
be a wig), while his feet were encased in large warm slippers. He
remembered well the various mineral collections he had studied in
Scotland, and was interested in hearing about the places he had seen,
and the survivors of the acquaintances he had made.
[Sidenote: HAIDINGER, VON DECHEN, BOUÉ]
H. von Dechen came to Scotland in 1827, and travelled over a good deal
of the country, of which he subsequently gave an account in one of the
German scientific journals. I first met him in Bonn, where he had a
large house commanding fine views up to the Siebengebirge, which he had
studied so minutely and described so carefully. His age, the number
and excellence of his geological writings, and his friendly interest
in the career of younger men made him the popular Nestor of Prussian
geologists. The last time I met him was in Berlin on the occasion of
the meeting of the International Geological Congress in 1885, of which
he was president. There was one lady member present at his address,
and the audience was amused by the formal courtesy with which he
began--‘Lady and Gentlemen.’
Ami Boué had an interesting history. He was descended from a French
family which could trace its pedigree back for some 400 years. In the
reign of Louis XIV, his ancestor, being Protestant, had to escape from
Bordeaux in a barrel. Boué himself was born in Hamburg. His mother had
been educated in Geneva, and French was the language she used in her
family circle. His early education was also given in Geneva, but as the
French armies had overrun Europe, and the family property in Hamburg
consisted largely of houses, which might at any moment be destroyed in
the political convulsions, it was considered desirable that Ami should
have a profession to fall back upon, in case of any such catastrophe.
He was accordingly sent to Edinburgh to study medicine. As he long
after remarked to me, ‘I really went to Scotland to escape from
Napoleon.’ But although, when Napoleon was finally crushed at Waterloo,
the Hamburg property was saved, Boué determined to continue his medical
studies and to take his degree, which he gained in 1817.
[Sidenote: AMI BOUÉ]
During his residence in Scotland he became greatly interested in
geological pursuits, and travelled over a good deal of the country,
examining its rocks. When he returned to the Continent, he settled
for a time in Paris, where he wrote his Esquisse _Géologique sur
l’Écosse_--a most valuable treatise which in many respects was far
in advance of its time. Subsequently, after wandering over much of
Europe, he finally fixed his home in Austria.
Having occasion in some of my own early writings to refer
appreciatively to Boué’s work, I one day received a letter written
in broken English and in a minute, cramped calligraphy, the lines
slanting obliquely across the page. To my astonishment the letter bore
the signature Ami Boué. This was the beginning of a correspondence
which lasted up to the time of his death. I paid him a visit in 1869,
and spent some time with him at his pleasant country-house on the
last spurs of the Alps near Vöslau, where he had planted quinces,
almond-trees, peaches, apples, and vines, and where I found his
recollections of Edinburgh and Scotland as vivid as if he had only
returned from that region a few years before.
Boué was singular in this respect, that he never thoroughly mastered
any language. Although French was the tongue that in early life came
most naturally to him, his French sometimes betrayed his German
connections. In German he only acquired fluency after middle life,
when he had settled in Vienna, and it was in German that all his
later contributions to science were written. English he never learned
to speak or write correctly. But he was rather proud of what he
thought to be his facility in that language, and all his letters
to me, extending over a period of thirteen years, were written in
broken English. As a specimen of the way in which he expressed
himself, I may quote a sentence from a letter written by him on 21st
November, 1870, during the calamitous Franco-German war. ‘The dreadful
war-pre-occupations did take me all time for thinking at scientific
matter, and now perhaps that distress will approach till nearer our
abode! When you will know that I have very good and near parents
in both armies and you perceive the possibility of parents killing
themselves without recognizing themselves, nor having the opportunity
to do so, you will understand that I have often headach when I ride the
newspapers or hear from the quite useless slaughters, which have been
provocated only by those men at the head of the human society.’
[Sidenote: A FIELD-GEOLOGIST]
The life of a field-geologist, being spent to a large extent in the
open air, brings him into contact with various classes of the people,
to whom his occupation is exceedingly mysterious. They see him marching
up and down the face of a rocky declivity, chipping the rock here and
there, putting the chips up to his eye, scrutinising them narrowly
through his lens, which is popularly supposed to be an eye-glass for
extremely short sight, then perhaps wrapping them up in paper and
putting them in his pocket, or in a bag slung across his shoulder.
They watch him taking out a map and marking down something upon it, or
whipping out a note-book and writing in it, perhaps for so long a time
that the patience of the watchers behind a neighbouring wall or hedge
is nearly exhausted, when off he marches again, or comes back to the
place he started from, as if he had left something behind him, or had
hopelessly lost his way.
A member of the Geological Survey, whose daily avocation consists in
such pursuits, is of course specially liable to become the victim of
curiosity and suspicion. He carries his accoutrements about his person
in such a manner that they do not attract notice, so that his object
and actions become extremely puzzling to the country people among whom
he has taken quarters for a time. He finds himself set down now for a
postman, now for a doctor, for a farmer, a cattle dealer, a travelling
showman, a country gentleman, a gamekeeper, a poacher, an itinerant
lecturer, a gauger, a clergyman, a playactor, and often as a generally
suspicious character. A member of the Survey, who afterwards became a
University Professor, received and posted many a letter entrusted to
him in the belief that he was the authorised bearer of Her Majesty’s
mails. Another member, also subsequently Professor, was taken for a
policeman in plain clothes, and could not for some time make out why
a poor woman poured into his ears a long story about her son, who
had been taken up for something that he had not done, and did quite
unintentionally, and was quite justified in doing.[39]
[Sidenote: EXPERIENCES OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY]
Gamekeepers are sometimes sorely at a loss what to make of the
Geological Survey trespasser: afraid to challenge him lest he prove
to be a friend of their master, and yet afraid to let him go his way
for fear he be on poaching thoughts intent, though the absence of a
visible gun piques their curiosity. One member of the staff, who had
taken up his quarters in a coast town in Fife, was watched by the
police on suspicion of having been concerned in a recent burglary.
Another was stalked as a suspect who had been setting fire to farm
buildings. A third was watched hammering by himself in the bed of a
stream near Girvan, and as he gave vent to some strong expression when
the obstinate boulder refused to part with a splinter, the onlooker
on the other side of an adjoining hedge fled in terror to the village
and reported that this strange man who had come among them was stark
mad, and should not be left to go by himself. Sometimes the laugh goes
distinctly against the geologist, as in the case of one of the most
distinguished of the staff who, poking about to see the rocks exposed
on the outskirts of a village in Cumberland, was greeted by an old
woman as the ‘sanitary ‘spector.’ He modestly disclaimed the honour,
but noticing that the place was very filthy, ventured to hint that such
an official would find something to do there. And he thereupon began
to enlarge on the evils of accumulating filth, resulting, among other
things, in an unhealthy and stunted population. His auditor heard him
out, and then, calmly surveying him from head to foot, remarked: ‘Well,
young man, all I have to tell ye is, that the men o’ this place are a
deal bigger and stronger and handsomer nor you.’ She bore no malice,
for she offered him a cup of tea, but, like Falstaff, he was ‘as
crestfallen as a dried pear,’ and could not face her any longer.
[Sidenote: EXPERIENCES OF GEOLOGISTS]
Professor James Geikie supplies me with the following record of his
experience when he was on the staff of the Survey: ‘One warm summer
day I was laboriously forcing my way up a narrow ravine or “cleugh” in
the hills south of Colmonel, in Ayrshire. The geology being somewhat
complicated, it was necessary to use my hammer at almost every step,
and for this purpose I had to keep the bed of the burn where the rocks
were best seen. The cleugh was not only narrow and steep, but choked
in places with blackthorn, so that progress was both slow and painful.
Being far from the madding crowd, there was no reason why, under a
broiling sun, I should affect a philosophical coolness which I was far
from feeling, and it is probable, therefore, that from time to time I
may have sought relief by addressing the obnoxious thorns in vehement
language. At the head of the cleugh I came upon a tall farmer-looking
man, who told me he had been watching my movements, and wondering who
and what I was. When he heard I was trying to find out how the world
was made, he expressed no astonishment, but showed keen interest as I
pointed out the evidence of glacial work--striated rocks, morainic
debris, and large erratics--all of which happened to be well displayed
on the hillside where we stood. As he seemed really anxious to know the
meaning of the evidence, I explained it as well as I could, and then
we parted. A few weeks afterwards I was dining with an old friend--the
late Mr. Cathcart of Knockdolian--who told me he was quite sure I must
have been recently in his neighbourhood. “Only yesterday,” he said,
“I met the old farmer of G----,” who had a strange tale to tell me.
“Dod! Mr. Caithcart,” he began, “I ran across the queerest body the
ither day. As I was comin’ by the head o’ the cleugh I thocht I heard
a wheen tinkers quarrellin’, but whan I lookit doon there was jist ae
wee stoot man. Whiles he was chappin’ the rocks wi’ a hammer: whiles
he was writin’ in a book, whiles fechtin’ wi’ the thorns, and miscain’
them for a’ that was bad. When he cam up frae the burn, him and me had
a long confab. Dod! he tell’t me a’ aboot the stanes, and hoo they
showed that Scotland was ance like Greenland, smoored in ice. A vary
enterteenin’ body, Mr. Caithcart, but--an awfu’ leear.”’
Among my own geological experiences in Scotland I may mention that
on one of my excursions, when, with a large party of my students, I
was passing along the sea-front of a fishing village in Fife, I heard
a stalwart matron ask her gossip at the next door, ‘Whae’s aucht
them?’--that is, who owns them, or has charge of them? She evidently
believed the company to be lunatic patients, but could not see any one
among their number who seemed to her sane enough to be probably their
keeper.
On another occasion in the same district I had been engaged for some
days in geological exploration with a colleague, and had several times
come upon a travelling show, which was slowly making its way through
the country. On entering one of the little coast-towns we found that
we were immediately behind this show, which, with its cavalcade of
waggons, had preceded us by only a few minutes. The women were still
standing at their doors, making remarks on the new arrival, when my
companion and I came up. As we passed a couple of them, we heard the
one remark to the other, ‘Na noo, arena thae twa daicent-lookin’ chiels
to be play-actin’ blackguards!’
[Sidenote: GEOLOGISTS IN THE HIGHLANDS]
If, fifty years ago, the ongoings of a field-geologist gave rise to
much curiosity and speculation in the lowlands, it may be imagined
how strange his occupation would seem to the natives of the Highlands,
especially among the Western Isles, and in districts where little
English was spoken, and where, consequently, he might be the subject
of audible remarks that he did not understand or could not reply to.
When I first set foot in Skye, most of my rambles there had geological
pursuits as their aim. The general character and succession of the
rocks of the island had been made known by Macculloch in his classic
_Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_. I found that he
was still remembered by some of the older inhabitants, but less as a
geologist than as a writer who had maligned them. In his four volumes
of letters to Sir Walter Scott on _The Highlands and Western Isles
of Scotland_--on the whole a somewhat tedious work, though often
amusing and occasionally even brilliant--he had given an account of
his experiences as a traveller and geologist in the Highlands. This
account was angrily resented by the natives as exaggerated, and even
untruthful. They had entertained him in their houses, furnished him
with boats, carriages, men, and other assistance, and he repaid them by
satirising their households and holding their manners and customs up
to public ridicule. Old Mackinnon of Corriehatachan was so indignant
that the next time he went to Glasgow after the publication of the
book, he took the engraved portrait of its author to a crockery-dealer
and commissioned a set of earthenware with Macculloch’s likeness on
each. These articles were distributed over Skye, and I have been told
that some of them are still to be seen.
Subsequently Skye was visited in 1827 by Murchison and Sedgwick, who
came to Strath. The familiar anecdote of the geologist who entrusted
his bag of specimens to a lad to be carried some miles to his inn, and
who found that the bag had been emptied and refilled with stones picked
up near the door, is told of Hugh Miller, of Sedgwick and of Murchison.
I was assured in Skye that the trick was played on Macculloch. But to
contrive to escape from the apparently unnecessary fatigue of carrying
a heavy bag a long distance is so natural that we can believe it may
have been carried out with all these worthies. I heard the anecdote in
Skye, from the late Dr. Donald Mackinnon. But the most circumstantial
account of it I have met with is that of Dr. Norman Macleod. ‘A
shepherd, while smoking his cutty-pipe at a small Highland inn, was
communicating to another in Gaelic his experiences of “mad Englishmen,”
as he called them. “There was one,” said he, “who once gave me his bag
to carry to the inn by a short cut across the hills, while he walked by
another road. I was wondering myself why it was so dreadfully heavy,
and when I got out of his sight I was determined to see what was in
it. I opened it, and what do you think it was? But I need not ask you
to guess, for you would never find out. It was stones!” “Stones!”
exclaimed his companion, opening his eyes, “Stones! well, well, that
beats all I ever knew or heard of them! and did you carry it?” “Carry
it! Do you think I was as mad as himself? No! I emptied them all out,
but I filled the bag again from the cairn near the house, and gave him
good measure for his money”!’
Another well-known story to the detriment of a geologist, is also
claimed for Skye. I was assured that it was Sedgwick, who, when
chipping a rock by the roadside as he went along on a Sunday, was
stopped by a Strath man with the query, ‘Do you know what you are
doing?’ and, on answering that he was breaking a stone, was told, ‘Ay,
you are doing mair than that; you are breakin’ the Sabbath.’ But here,
again, the remark is so obvious in a Sabbatarian country that it may
have been made by independent censors on more occasions than one.
The memory of the visits of these early geological pioneers had faded
away when I came to Skye. It seemed that no geologist since their day
had been seen in Strath, so that the appearance of a lad wandering
about alone and, as it looked, aimlessly, with a hammer in his hand and
a bag over his shoulder, gave rise to much wonderment and conjecture
among the crofters. They knew me by the name of _Gille na Clach_,
or the ‘Lad of the Stones,’ and came in the end to see that I was
harmless. But now and then they would express their convictions or
their pity. Once, when passing some huts on the shore of Loch Slapin,
I stopped to break off a fragment from a projecting rock in front
of them. As usual, I looked at the chip with my lens, and, having
satisfied myself as to the nature of the rock, was resuming my walk,
when I heard two old crones at their doors speaking of me. I knew very
little Gaelic, but I caught up the emphatic remark that closed the
conversation--‘As a cheill.’ When I returned to Kilbride I asked the
tutor of the family the meaning of the expression, and learnt that it
was, ‘He’s wrong in the head.’
[Sidenote: LIFE ON PABBA]
One of my earliest excursions from Kilbride led me to the island of
Pabba, which lies like a flat green meadow in front of Broadford Bay.
Hugh Miller had described to me its richly fossiliferous Liassic
shales, and I went with the determination to spend some time on the
island, and make a good collection of its fossils. The only habitation
in the place was one small hut, tenanted by Charles Mackinnon and
his family, who looked after the cattle sent across from the farm of
Corrie. Coming with the recommendation of their master, I was cordially
welcomed. But the resources of the island were slender. My sleeping
quarters were a heap of heather in a corner of the upper floor of a
barn, while for my dining-room I had the use of the ‘ben’ or inner room
in Charles’ hut. The food consisted chiefly of potatoes, oat-cakes,
milk, and tea, with an occasional herring or an egg. After a day’s work
along the shore, I would spend the evening in the hut, labelling and
wrapping up my specimens, while Mackinnon, who knew a little English,
sat by the side of the peat fire, and gave me his company. We had been
engaged in this way for some time the first evening, when the door
opened, and his wife looked in. After watching me for a few moments
arranging my bits of stone, she made a remark in Gaelic which drew an
angry reproof from her ‘goodman,’ who ordered her to go away. With some
difficulty I drew from him the admission that the poor woman had only
said ‘if she wassna kennin’ ye had sense, she wad be thinking ye wass a
terrible eediot.’
When it was time to retire for the night, my hostess would take a live
peat between the tongs in one hand and a candle in the other, and sally
out into the night, then up an outside stair, without any rail, to my
barn, where she lit the candle, and left me. I shall never forget the
moaning of the wind through the open louver-boards that served for
windows, the gusts that swept through the place and nearly blew out the
candle, and the shrieking of the sea-fowl, like the agonised cries of
drowning seamen. But the heather was soft, the blankets warm, and with
youth on one’s side one slept soundly till the morning.
[Sidenote: A GEOLOGIST IN SKYE]
At my departure I pressed my kind host and hostess to accept
remuneration for their services, but they rejected the notion almost
with indignation. At last Charles was persuaded to let me send him
some remembrance when I got back to the south country. He said he would
prefer a book, and when asked to choose his book, he timidly enquired
whether he might have ‘_Josaiphus_.’ Although his knowledge of English
was scanty, he used to read English books aloud to his children, but I
am afraid that much of what he read must have been unintelligible both
to him and to them. However, I procured and sent him an illustrated
copy of _Josephus_, which, I was told, he used to show with pride as
the largest book on his shelf.
A more distant excursion took me to the extreme north-eastern part of
Skye. After spending some time on the shore of Loch Staffin and making
a collection of the well-preserved fossils to be obtained there, I
started late one afternoon for the hamlet of Lonfern, in which my
friends at the Manse of Snizort, told me I would get a warm welcome at
Mrs. Nicolson’s, if I mentioned that I came from them. The distance
was only a few miles, but there was much to interest me by the way,
so that the gloaming had set in, and still no sign could be seen of
the hamlet. At last I came upon a man returning from the hill with a
creel of peats on his back, and asked him the path to Lonfern, when
a conversation ensued, which may here be given as an illustration of
crofter inquisitiveness.
‘Lonfern! Are you gaun to Lonfern? And where hae ye come frae?’
‘I have come this evening from Loch Staffin.’
‘Frae Loch Staffin! and ye’ll be a marchant?’
‘No, I’m not a merchant.’
‘Not a marchant! and what is’t that ye’ll be carryin’ in your bag?’
‘My bag is full of stones.’
‘Full of _stones_! Ochan, ochan! d’ye tell me that? STONES in your bag.
And what wull ye be doin’ wi’ the stones?’
‘Well, I mean to take them south and look at them all very carefully.’
‘Lookin’ at stones! Well, well! And have ye no stones in your ain
countrie?’
‘O yes, plenty of them; but they are not the same as you have in Skye.
But will you not tell me how I am to go to reach Lonfern.’
‘To Lonfern! Ow ay, to be sure, the way to Lonfern. But what use are
the stones to you?’
‘Well, I told you, I wished to have samples of the Skye stones beside
me.’
[Sidenote: CROFTER INQUISITIVENESS]
‘To think o’ a man keepin’ stones to look at them! But are they worth
onythin’? Can you make onythin’ oot o’ them?’
‘Yes to me they are worth a great deal, for they show me what Skye was
like long, long ago. But it is getting dark now, and I really must push
on to Lonfern, if you will point out the track.’
‘Ay, ay; well, well, that’s queer enough. To think that ye wud be
comin’ all the way frae the south country to pick up a wheen stanes at
Loch Staffin. And I’ll warrant the bag’s heavy too. So it is, whatever’
(gently lifting it from my back).
‘Well, my friend, I must say good night, if you won’t help me to find
Lonfern.’
‘Ow ay, but I wull that. D’ye see thae twa peat-stacks. Weel then,
ye’ll be keepin’ round by them to the burn, and ye’ll be coming to the
wood plank across the burn, and ye’ll cross over there, and then ye’ll
be keepin’ straught on by the side o’ the dyke, and in a wee while you
will be seein’ Lonfern forenenst you.’
‘Thank you, thank you, and good night.’
‘Gude nicht, and I’m wussin’ ye safe hame wi’ that bag.’
[Sidenote: A CROFTER HOME IN SKYE]
I had been told by my Snizort friends that Jessie Nicolson’s cottage
could easily be found, for it was the largest of the row that formed
the hamlet. But by the time I arrived there, the darkness had settled
down, so that only by stooping, in order to get the outline of the
roofs against the western sky, could one judge of the relative size
of the huts. At last I selected what seemed to be the right one,
and knocked at the door. There was no answer for a time, and while
waiting I could hear, to the left hand, under the same roof, the heavy
breathing and crunching noises of the cows. After a second knock, the
door was eventually opened, and the figure of an elderly woman appeared
against the faint light of a candle in the room to the right hand. I
asked if this was Mrs. Nicolson’s. Instead of answering, she began to
pass her hand over my face, neck, and shoulders. Not knowing whether
she might be deaf and dumb, I shouted out that I had come from the
Manse of Snizort. At the sound of these words, she took me by the arm
and almost dragged me into the room with the light. ‘Frae the Manse o’
Snizort, are ye?’ she exclaimed. ‘And very welcome here.’ Planting me
down by the side of the peat fire, which she raked together and stacked
up with more fuel, she plied me with questions as to how they all were
at the manse, and at every additional detail of news, her joy seemed
to increase. By degrees her family of well-grown sons and daughters
began to assemble, and to every one I was introduced afresh as from
the Manse of Snizort, and had to answer a similar round of questions.
Meanwhile the old lady, from a handsome brass-bound chest of drawers
(perhaps a marriage gift from her friends at Snizort) which stood on
one side of the room, took out a tablecloth of beautiful snow-white
linen, and spread it on the table. One of the sons had come in from
the bay with a fresh salmon, which, cut up into steaks, formed part of
an excellent supper, enlivened with much talk, wherein the Manse of
Snizort and its inmates played a large part.
In this same room there were two beds, one of which was spread afresh
for me, while the other was occupied by one of the sons. My experience
among the crofters had accustomed me to peat-reek, but its pungency
this evening surpassed anything I had previously undergone. After the
family had retired, and I had lain down between the soft white sheets,
it was some time before the smarting of the closed eyelids would allow
of sleep.
The architecture of one of these houses is of the simplest kind. On
one side of the door is the division reserved for the cattle. On the
other is the part occupied by the human inmates, which in the smallest
huts may consist of a single room. Where there are more rooms than
one, they are joined on to each other, with only a thin wattled or
blanket partition between them. There is no separate passage, so that
from the innermost room it is necessary to pass through the others to
reach the outside. The doors between the rooms often consist only of a
blanket hung across the opening, and pushed aside when one wishes to
enter or to leave. On the morning following my arrival I was awakened
by the footsteps of some one passing through my room, and noticed a
female skirt disappearing beyond the blanket. In a few moments the
eldest daughter of the house entered bearing a tray laden with bottles
and glasses, which she brought up to my bedside, in order that, as she
said, I might ‘taste something before I got up.’ Not being used to
such a matutinal habit, I declined her offer with my best thanks. But
she grew quite serious over my refusal, assuring me that my tasting
would give me an appetite. In vain I maintained that at breakfast time
she would see that I stood in no need of any help of that kind. She
only the more ran over the choice of good appetising things she had
brought me. ‘Some whusky nate? some whusky and wahtter? some whusky
and milk? some acetates?’ This last I conjectured to be a decoction of
bitter roots in whisky, often to be found on Highland sideboards in the
morning. Seeing that a persistent refusal would have displeased her, I
consented at last to have some milk and whisky, but I did not discover
that the draught in any way improved my breakfast.
[Sidenote: A HIGHLAND BREAKFAST]
There are few meals in the world more enjoyable than a true Highland
breakfast. It presupposes, however, good health, a good digestion,
and freedom from the daily visits of the penny post. The porridge and
cream at the beginning provide a sensible substratum on which the later
viands can be built up. Even if you confine your efforts to only one
or two of these viands, the variety of the whole table, redolent of
the hillside and the moor, and so unlike the typical morning repast
of ordinary southerners, imparts a sense of plenty and freedom, and
renews the longing to be out once more in the glen or on the mountain.
Christopher North, who more than most men appreciated the merits of
this repast, used to say, after having made a good meal, ‘now is the
time to pitch in a few eggs.’ Johnson, too, who liked good living,
admitted that the Scots, both Lowland and Highland, excel the English
in breakfast. ‘If an epicure,’ he says, ‘could remove by a wish, in
quest of sensual gratification, wherever he had supped, he would
breakfast in Scotland.’[40]
The breakfast at Lonfern was worthy of the supper of the evening
before. When I had to address myself to my journey to Portree those
kindly folk gathered round me with expressions of the most affectionate
interest, as if I had been an old friend instead of an unknown
stranger. They would not hear of my starting off by myself. It was a
walk of eighteen miles, they said, and the track was rough, and in
many places not easy to find. Besides, there was a high cliff on the
left hand, and if mist came on I might fall over into the sea, several
hundred feet below, and there were deep slacks (ravines) to cross, and
many burns which might be swollen, together with other dangers which
were duly detailed. So one of the sons must accompany me all the way,
and carry my bag. To refuse the escort would have given offence; so we
parted with the heartiest good wishes on both sides, and I had unlooked
for companionship through the moors and boggy tracts that lie between
the edge of the sea-washed precipices and the steep hillsides of
Trotternish.
[Sidenote: THE SPAR-CAVE]
During my earlier visits to Skye, the Admiralty survey of the
surrounding seas and coasts was in progress, under the direction of
Captain Wood, R.N. He used to be a welcome guest at Kilbride, and he
sometimes took the house party on board his gunboat for a sail down
Loch Slapin. On one of these occasions we visited the Spar Cave, and,
with the help of the sailors and Bengal lights, we saw that famous
cavern more completely than perhaps it had ever been seen before. But
its glory was gone. A couple of generations of Sassenach tourists,
aided by the hammers, candles, and torches of ignorant Celts, had
defaced the place beyond belief, shorn it of the beauty of its white
crystalline pillars, and left it mangled and smoke-streaked. In the
course of centuries, if left undisturbed, ‘Nature, softening and
concealing, and busy with a hand of healing,’ would doubtless repair
the damage. But the ruthless iconoclast should in the meantime be
debarred access to the grotto, until the ‘sweet benefit of time’ has
renewed the former glories of the place.
We went on to Loch Scavaig, landed at the head of that gloomy fjord,
and walked over to Coruisk. I have often been there since, but have
never a second time witnessed a sight which was provided for us by the
tars of the gunboat. As everybody knows, who has been to this most
sombre of Scottish lakes, the declivities around the water are dotted
over with boulders of all sizes, left there by the glacier which once
filled the basin of Loch Coruisk and passed down Loch Scavaig out to
sea. Some of these blocks of stone stand perched in the most perilous
positions, on steep slopes and on the edge of cliffs, whence from a
little distance it seems as if a mere touch would suffice to send them
bounding into the lake below. Their number and situation evidently
interested the sailors, who, as a change from their usual boating and
sounding for the marine survey, dashed off for the nearest hill, along
the profile of which the boulders lay in especial abundance. We had not
noticed at first in which direction the men moved, when our attention
was attracted by a thundering noise from the hill in question, followed
by a loud splash in the lake below. The tars had found some of the
perched blocks capable of being moved, and no doubt they dislodged
as many as they could. But, fortunately for the sake of geologists,
they could not succeed with the larger and finer boulders, which still
remain where the melting ice allowed them to rest.
[Sidenote: NIGHT AT LOCH SCAVAIG]
In recent years, while the ‘Aster’ has been cruising along these
coasts, it has several times anchored for the night at the head of Loch
Scavaig, and a more impressive anchorage can hardly be imagined. The
precipices on either side plunge almost perpendicularly into the water,
and mount upwards, crag over crag, into the far black, splintered
crests and pinnacles that surround Coruisk. The tints of sunset flame
along these peaks, while the evening shadows creep slowly upwards, and
deepen into such darkness below that one cannot tell where land and
water meet. The sea, though tidal, may be motionless as the calmest
lake. The stillness is only broken by the hoarse roar of the torrents
that tumble in white cascades through rifts in the black rocks. In the
long summer nights the northern sky remains full of light, and even at
midnight the striking outlines of the surrounding mountains stand out
sharp and clear against it. Now and then a sea-gull may circle slowly
past and disappear in the gloom, but for the most part there is little
sign of life at these hours.