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Show 260 ACTION OF TilE SEA ON At N orthmavine, also, angular blocks of stone have been removed in a similar manner to considerable distances, by the waves of the sea*, some of which are represented in the annexed figure, No.7. No.7. Stony fr agment• drifted by the ~ea . Nvrtl.,navinc, Shetland . In addition to numerous examples of masses detached and driven by the tides and currents from their place, some remat·k. able effects of lightning are recorded in these isles. At Funzie, in Fetlar, about the middle of the last century, a rock of mica schist, one hundred and five feet long, ten feet broad, and in some places four feet thick, was in an instant torn by a flash of lightning from its bed, and broken into three large, and several lesser fragments. One of these, twenty-six feet long, ten feet broad, and four feet thick, was simply turned over. The second, which was twenty-eight feet long, seventeen broad, and five feet in thickness, was hurled across a high point to the distance of fifty yards. Another broken mass, about forty feet long, was thrown still farther, but in the same direction, quite into the sea. There were also many lesser fragments scattered up and down t. When we thus see electricity co-operating with the violent movements of the ocean in heaping up piles of shattered rocks on dry land, and beneath the waters, we cannot but admit that a region which shall be the theatre, for myriads of ages, of the action of such disturbing causes, will rresent, at some future period, a scene of havoc and ruin that may compare with any • For this and the three following representations of rocks in the Shetland Isles, I am indebted to Dr. Hibbert's work before cited, which is rich in antiquarian aud geological research. t Dr. Hibbert, from MSS. of Rev. George Low, of Fetlar. TilE SHETLAND ISLANDS . 261 now found by the geoloaist on tl raised as they all have b 5 • " Je surface of our continents. d een m wrmer age f h b ' eep. We have scarcely b s rom t e osom of the a single c1ass of the might :gun, as yet, to study the effects of . y Instruments of h d . now operatmg on our globe . d c ange an disorder to resort to a nascent orde ' fan h'yet geologists have pt·esumed r 0 t mgs or t . 1 · . economy of Nature to ex 1 . ' 0 1evo ut10ns m the I ' P am every obsc . h n some of the Shetland I 1 me P enomenon ! d'k . s es, as on the west f M 'kl 1 es, or vems of soft granit I 0 e1 e Roe, matrix in which they were ei~~::e~o~l~ered away; while the stance, but of a firmer textur h ' ~mg of the same sublong narrow ravines someti' e, tas remamed unaltered. Thus ' mes wenty feet 'd ' and often give access to tl WI e, are laid open h Je waves After d 'l' ' uge cavernous apertures into whi~h h escn )mg some hundred and fifty feet in R t e sea flows for two I oeness, Dr Hibb t ot 1er ravages of the ocean , , A · er enumerates dimensions of which rna . h mass of rock, the average teen feet square, and fou~ ~:~ :P:a~e ;;ted a~ tw~lve or thirfirst moved from its bed b fif five m thickness, was thirty feet, and has sin~: bout ty. years ago, to a distance of b · een twice turned B tml ost su hme scene is where a mura1 pl'1 c of porpohve r. ut t. he le process of disintegration that . . yry, escapmg appears to have been 1 'ft Is devastatmg the coast . d e as a sort of r ' Inroa s of the ocean ·-the ~tl . ampart against the g al b ' ... antic when prov k db . es, atters against it with a ll t I1 e '~o rce of reaol aer ti1yle wrym-tthrye ,;r;:_:~~.:.¥~:_::~..,.-._...-u 0 - No. 8. Grind o,f the Navlr-Pauaf l' forced b~ the.•ea throufih rock• .. ~ hCird h "' porp yr~, |
