Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

4l8
MINERALS.
as many shillings would have cured it of smoking-. Tris-
tram Shandy's door was a joke to this.
How the expedient turned out, it remains for the post-
script to say. Three years after, I found a new house
standing by the side of the original, like a calf by its
cow ; the same bare gable, exposed to the same never
ending rains, and all things else fitting. Whether it
smoked and leaked also, no one knew; for he could not
be " fashed " to leave the old one. When I think of such
adventures, 1 sometimes rub my eyes, and wonder if 1
have not been dreaming. But that is impossible ; for I
was there five several years. The house was as black
at the last as the first, the passage as much a ditch, the
parlour floor as susceptible of half-crowns, and my worthy
friend's eyes would have been redder if they could.
In many places, 1 found the new roads made with
lumps of Stilbite. Such sights as these are highly re-
galing to gentlemen mineralogists, who never saw a
mineral except in Mr. Heuland's shop, nor could ever
carry one away in their pockets without leaving a guinea
in exchange. Sky, to them, is a perfect El Dorado.
Talisker is the greatest mine for these matters ;
;
abound-
ing- particularly in Analcime, but producing many other
rare and beautiful Zeolites, and, among others, one which
is almost peculiar to this place, and which resembles the
finest silk or cotton. Many species are also found along
the cliffs further to the southward, and some of them as
yet undescribed ;
but in places where it requires no com-
mon dexterity and no common courage to attempt a
landing. But whether we collect minerals or not, there
is something striking in seeing a beach strewed with
specimens enough to stock all the shops in London ; to
see wealth (since that is wealth which must generally be
purchased) soliciting the spectator's hand. I had wit-