my survey of Scotland to the north of the Grampians; and I would have reckoned at least half my self-imposed task at an end. When laboring professionally, however, during the previous winter and spring, I had, I am afraid, sometimes failed to remember, what the old chivalric knights used never to forget, that "man is but of mould;" and I had, in consequence, subjected the "mould" to a heavier pressure than, from its yielding nature, it is suited to bear. And now that play-time had once more come round, I found I had scarce health and strength enough left me to carry me in quest of more. I could no longer undertake, as formerly, long journeys a-foot in a wild country, nor scramble, with sure step, and head that never failed, along the faces of tall precipices washed by the sea. And so, for the time at least, I had to give up all thought of visiting Orkney.
"I will cross the Border," I said, "and get into England. I know the humbler Scotch better than most men,—I have at least enjoyed better opportunities of knowing them; but the humbler English I know only from hearsay. I will go and live among them for a few weeks, somewhere in the midland districts. I shall lodge in humble cottages, wear a humble dress, and see what is to be seen by humble men only,—society without its mask. I shall explore, too, for myself, the formations wanting in the geologic scale of Scotland,—the Silurian, the Chalk, and the Tertiary; and so, should there be future years in store for me, I shall be enabled to resume my survey of our Scottish deposits with a more practised eye than at present, and with more extended knowledge." August was dragging on to its close through a moist and cloudy atmosphere; every day had its shower, and some days half a dozen, but I hoped for clearer skies and fairer weather in the south; and so, taking my seat at Edinburgh on the top of the New-
