thereon the first Christian church at Dairsie. They Christianise the rude inhabitants, teach them to cultivate the soil, and to erect corn and meal mills on the waterfalls of Dura Den. For the first time that old geologic stream, which has hitherto done nature's work, is diverted from its course, and associated with the wants and wishes of humanity. But Culdee and Catholic are alike amenable to the law of change and progress. Protestantism usurps their place.

The old church and prelatical palace of Dairsie fall into other hands, and Dura Den becomes the witness of newer events. The cave in the yellow sandstone for which Pict and wild beast contended, shelters in turn the Catholic recluse and the Covenanting martyr. Protestantism, however, is but the religious phase of a freer and higher intellectual activity; and with that activity come new wants to supply, and newer desires to gratify. And so at length it comes about that the stream of Dura must do harder and heavier work. The meal and lint mills are removed, and the headlong current is now directed against the ponderous wheel of the spinningfactory, with its thousand shafts and spindles. As the workmen divert the watercourse for this purpose, the glittering fossil treasures of the yellow sandstone are revealed, and in 1836 Dura Den becomes geologically famous.

Strange that the requirements of the most mechanical of everyday arts should have been the means of unfolding the hidden treasures of nature to the eye of science! And, stranger still, that this revelation should take place only at the time when the minds of men were prepared to receive and appreciate! The old Pict would have valued a sling stone from the stream a thousand times more than the rarest of fossil fishes. To the Culdee and Catholic these relics of past life would have merely become the objects of superstitious reverence and error.

up to the beginning of the present

Our forefathers, even

century, ignorant of

the marvellous history that geology unfolds, would have ascribed the whole to that most convenient solution of all terraqueous difficulties the Deluge; and so the matter would have lain misinterpreted and unimproved. The discovery of these fossil fishes in 1835 and 1836, when the credibility of geology was ardently discussed, and when the master-minds of the science were strongly directed to the old red sandstone, is surely something more than a mere coincidence. We are no audacious intruders into the designs of Providence, but to us the course of nature would be shorn of half its significance, did we cease to believe in the coadaptation of events, and the prearrangement of Under this belief, the history of the past becomes hopeful, and its interpretation intelligible; without this conviction, the study of creation would be but an unencouraging task-a very dreary uncertainty.

occurrences.

Such, once more, is Dura Den. All honour to thoseDr George Buist, Dr Anderson, Mr Dalgleish, the lord of the manor, the British Association, and others--who have aided in the discovery of these fossil treasures! all encouragement to those who may yet assist in the interpretation of much that remains unexplained! To the student who has followed this brief and imperfect explanation, we trust that facts formerly known have been rendered somewhat clearer, and that things unknown before have been made intelligible. Should he visit the interesting locality -and it is not the less interesting because there the powers of nature have been made to minister to the wants of humanity, or the works of men have taken origin and position from the pre-existing works of God-these explanations may throw some new attraction round the objects of his visit, and may add to the enjoyment of his ramble. Should it be in winter, when the swollen stream rushes on in its impetuous course-in spring, when the

yellow primrose stars the banks-in summer, when the overhanging foliage affords a grateful shade-in autumn, when the wooded cliffs assume a thousand fading tintsduring day, when the hum of busy wheels mingles with the murmur of the waterfall-during the stilly gloaming, when the rustling of the leaf and the tinkling of the imprisoned stream are the only sounds that greet the ear,—it may be that a knowledge of these fossil forms shall awaken other thoughts than those suggested by the surrounding scenery, and these thoughts be hallowed by the reflection that under the spot on which he treads are entombed myriads of beings that were the objects of God's care thousands of ages before". man became a living soul," and that in these fossil forms we trace the essentials of the same vital plan on which our own life is founded, and by which its economy is governed.

SOILS AND SUBSOILS-THEIR NATURE

AND ORIGIN.

GENERALLY speaking, the soils and subsoils of a country receive but scanty consideration from geologists, yet few things are more curious in their formation, none so indispensable in the cosmical purposes they subserve. It is true they are recent, and insignificant in mass, compared with the rocky crust which forms the great theme of geology; but considering how intimately they are associated with the manifestations of vegetable and animal life, as well as with the food-supplies of man, they are deserving of a closer inquiry, whether as regards their origin, their qualities, or their artificial amelioration. They meet us at every turn on the terrestrial surface, and, like the outer covering of plants and animals, give beauty and unity of outline to the stony skeleton that lies below-here levelling inequalities, there smoothing over asperities, and everywhere conferring on the harder elements softer and more attractive features. According to depth and quality they are wet or dry, cold or warm; here teeming with a luxuriant plantgrowth, there scantily covered with the lowest forms of vegetable existence; here capable of amelioration by human ingenuity and industry, there defying all change, and doomed to everlasting sterility. There are few things, indeed, more

P

varied in character, and none that tells so directly on the aspects, the fertility, the industry, or the general wellbeing of a country. Let us note a few facts relating to their origin and more conspicuous characteristics; and, first, of the origin of soils, and their slow and gradual formation.

Take the surface of the hardest and most refractory rock -say granite or porphyry; strip it of every loose and incohering particle, sweep it bare by the conjoint agencies of wind and water, and then let it remain exposed to the influences that naturally surround it. In a few years the gases of the atmosphere will have weathered and wasted the surface, the frosts disintegrated, and the winds and rains blown and washed the disintegrated fragments into the sheltered hollows and depressions. Insects, the droppings of passing animals, the drift of wind-borne debris, and the like, will mingle with the rocky fragments-and thus imperceptibly the naked surface receives the first beginnings of a soil. In a few years more, the air-borne spores and seeds of plants will germinate and take root, and, however feeble the growth of the lichen and moss, or other lowly plant, its annual decay is ever adding to and altering the character of the scanty mould; and thus, in the course of generations, the naked rock is covered with soil, partly through mechanical, partly through chemical, and partly through vital agencies. And as this soil is ever thickening and increasing, higher plants and higher animals will gradually find a new home-each in turn preparing the way for another-till at length, in the course of ages, the flinty rock is clothed with a fertile and life-sustaining envelope.

Take, again, the surface of the recent lava-stream, bare, blistered, and vitrified, and which looks as if it would resist for ever the powers of disintegration and decay; and yet see how it yields to the combined influences of chemical and vital action, and breaks down at last into soil and fertility.