James Hutton (1726-1797)
Biographical account of the late Dr James Hutton, FRS, Edinburgh
LIFE of Dr HUTTON.
71
countries, is so covered by the soil, as to be visible in very
few places. In the autumn of this same year, however, Dr
HUTTON had an opportunity of observing another instance of it
in the bank of the river Jedd, about a mile above the town of
Jedburgh. The schistus there is micaceous, in vertical plates,
running from east to west, though somewhat undulated. Over
these is extended a body of red sandstone, in beds nearly hori-
zontal, having interposed between it and the vertical strata a
breccia full of fragments of these last. Dr HUTTON has given
an account of this spot in the first volume of his Theory of the
Earth, p. 432., accompanied with a copper-plate, from a drawing
by Mr CLERK.
IN 1788 he made some other valuable observations of the
same kind. The ridge of the Lammer-muir Hills, in the south
of Scotland, consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends
from St Abb’s-head westward, till it join the metalliferous
mountains about the sources of the Clyde. The sea-coast af-
fords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extre-
mity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary
strata, both on the south and on the north. Dr HUTTON wish-
ed particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occa-
sion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him.
We sailed in a boat from Dunglass, on a day when the fineness
of the weather permitted us to keep close to the foot of the
rocks which line the shore in that quarter, directing our
course southwards, in search of the termination of the second-
ary strata. We made for a high rocky point or head-land,
the SICCAR, near which, from our observations on shore, we
knew that the object we were in search of was likely to be disco-
vered. On landing at this point, we found that we actually
trode on the primeval rock, which forms alternately the base
and the summit of the present land. It is here a micaceous
schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretch-
VOL. V.—P.III.
K
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