Note 337 — Chapter XLIII · THE BOSSES AND SHEETS OF GABBRO

See his Western Islands, vol. i. pp. 368, 374, 385, 386. With much admiration for the insight and zeal, amounting almost to genius, which Macculloch displayed in his work among the Western Islands, at a time when, with poor maps and inadequate means of locomotion, geological surveying was a more difficult task than it is now, I have found it impossible to follow in his footsteps with his descriptions in hand, and not to wish that for his own fame he had been content to claim credit only for what he had seen. His actual achievements were enough to make the reputation of half a dozen good geologists. It was unfortunate that he did not realize how inexhaustible nature is, how impossible it is for one man to see and understand every fact even in the little corner of nature which he may claim to have explored. He seems to have had a morbid fear lest any one should afterwards discover something he had missed; he writes as if with the object of dissuading men from travelling over his ground, and he indeed tacitly lays claim to anything they may ascertain by averring that those who may follow him "will find a great deal that is not here described, although little that has not been examined" (p. 373). Principal Forbes long ago exposed this weak side of Macculloch and his work (Edin. New Phil. Journ. xl. 1846, p. 82).