Note 31 — Chapter IV · A STRING OF QUAINT BEADS FROM MANY LANDS.

In case you care for further particulars of the “warp and woof,” which combine to produce this extraordinary specimen of geological tartan, I may quote Professor Edward Forbes’ description of the series of formations shown in the face of the cliff.

First of all comes the crowning mass of huge columnar basalt, red, brown, and yellow. Below this lies—

1. A thin band of small-rolled pebbles, mingled with fragments of jet.

2. Crumbling blue shales, with fossils, five feet in thickness.

3. A thin band of concretionary limestone.

4. Five feet of blue shale, with Ammonites and large Balemnites.

5. Two bands of hard, grey limestone, weathering yellow, three feet.

6. Dark blue fossiliferous shales, seven feet.

7. Red and yellowish limestone, with fossils, one foot.

8. Blue shales, one foot.

9. Ferruginous sands, with fragments of wood in the state of jet, one foot.

10. Concretionary limestone, with fossils, one foot.

11. Soft white sands, three feet.

12. Hard fossiliferous sandstones, two feet.

13. Grey sands, with carbonaceous streaks, five feet.

14. Hard shales, with bands of fossil wood, three feet.

15. About fourteen bands of loose slaty and shaly beds, about twelve feet in thickness, resting on the basalt which lies beneath the waves.

Add to this varied mineral colouring occasional stripes and patches of vivid emerald and gold, wherever the kindly grass and moss has found a niche, and you perceive that this natural tartan is about as diverse as any “coat of many colours” ever woven in human loom.