File:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London (12981007745).jpg

364
PKOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
.Dec. 1,
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which on the west rise from the cove of Clash-
carnach to the summit of Skrishven (1213 feet
above the sea), on the eastern flank of which
they are unconformably overlapped by the
lowest beds of the quartz-rock (c^), which dip
away to the E.S.E. and form the base of the
Lower Silurian rocks of Durness, as shown in
the Section, fig. 3.
In the interior of the tract called the*' Parph,"
or the mountainous district lying between
Durness on the N.E. and Loch Laxford on the
S.W., these Old purple sandstones are largely
developed, also capping the fundamental grey
gneiss. They are indeed well exhibited near
the summit-level of the high road to Scourie,
or at the Grwalin Inn, whence they are seen
to pass under the great quartzose Silurian
series on the east. They extend, however,
very little further to the east, since the gneiss
rising in the western flanks of Foinaven and
Ben Stack is at once covered by the lower
quartz-rock. The Cambrian sandstone is again
magnificently displayed in the western cliflfe
of the Island of Handa, where it constitutes
cliffs upwards of 500 feet high, much fre-
quented by sea-fowl, and where the strata,
slightly deviating from horizontahty, are also
laid open by fine vertical fissures; the dip
inclining, on the whole, a few degrees to
the S.E. Again, in the promontory of Rhu
Storr, or the Point of Assynt, and all along
the shores of Lochs Inver and Enard, the
fundamental gneiss is unconformably super-
posed at a little distance inland by masses
of the Cambrian Red Sandstone, which, to
the south of the Kyles of Strome, rise into
the lofty peaks forming the chief beauty of
the tract of Assynt and constituting from
north to south the detached mountains of
Queenaig, Suilven, and Canisp, each separated
by lower tracts of fundamental gneiss, as in
the preceding woodcut, fig. 2, and thence ex-
tending into similar ranges in Ross-shire. On
this occasion I explored carefuUy (the weather
favouring) the eastern flanks of Suilven, where
the nearly horizontal strata of that noble
mountain are seen in their greatest extent to
repose upon the fundamental gneiss. It is
about halfway along the side of the mountain
that the whole mass has been afiected by a
great E. and W. fault, to which my attention