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As there is, in this country of Scotland, two different species of mountains or hills, one composed both in matter and manner exactly similar to the Alps of Switzerland, the other of whin-stone, basaltic rock, or subterraneous lava; and as the fossil coal, argillaceous and sand-stone strata, are found variously connected with those hills, nothing can tend more to give a proper understanding, with regard to the construction of the land in general, of the globe than a view of those different bodies, which are here found much mixed together in a little space of country, thus exhibiting, as it were in miniature, what may be found in other parts of the world, upon a larger scale, but not upon any other principle.
But in another place, about half a mile farther up the river, where a very deep section of the strata is discovered, there are two injections from below; the one is a thin vein of whin-stone or basaltes, full of round particles of steatites impregnated with copper; it is but a few inches wide, and proceeds in a kind of zigzag.
Hence there is scarcely a considerable tubercle, with which this country also abounds, that may not be found containing a mass of whin-stone as a nucleus.
But this mass did not rest on the schistus; it is immediately upon a mass of whin-stone; and the schistus is in the harbour, so that this whin-stone mass seems to be here interposed between the pudding-stone and schistus.
This is a peaked hill of an irregular erupted mass; but on the south and north sides of this central mass, the basaltic matters had been forced also in those inclined beds among the regular strata. On the north side we find remarkable masses of whin-stone in that regular form among the strata, and lying parallel with them.
Whatever, therefore, shall be ascertained with regard to our whin-stone, may be so far generalized or extended to the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Germany. The whin-stone of Scotland is also the same with the toad-stone of Derbyshire, which is of the amygdaloides species; it is also the same with the flagstone of the south of Staffordshire, which is a simple whin-stone, or perfect trap.
Hence such violent ebullition in volcanos, and hence the emission of so much pumice-stone and ashes, which are of the same nature. In the body of our whin-stone, on the contrary, there is no mark of calcination or vitrification.
This happens sometimes to a part of a coal stratum which approaches the whin-stone. Having thus stated the case of combustible or bituminous strata, I would ask those naturalists, who adhere to the theory of infiltration and the operation of water alone, how they are to conceive those strata formed and consolidated.
Here is the source of the whin-stone which we were looking for; it is the common blue basaltes, of the same nature with the Giant's Causeway, but with no regular columner appearance. Above Oldhamstocks we again found the sand-stone in the bank, but it soon disappeared under a deep cover of gravel, and the burn then divided into several rivulets which come from the hills.
But what is to the present purpose is this, that, through all this space, there are interspersed immense quantities of whinstone; a body which is to be distinguished as very different from lava; and now the disposition of this whin-stone is to be considered.
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