Granite, indeed, is a material in many respects superior to sandstone, gneiss, or porphyry. The first it greatly excels in durability and weight; and, as a stone for the workyard, it is superior to the other two, from its property of being _fissile_, or easily split in any direction. In this respect it resembles certain parts of some sandstone strata which are commonly called _liver rock_, of which Craigleith quarry, near Edinburgh, furnishes an excellent example. Porphyry, and, I think, all other igneous rocks (excepting granite), gneiss also, and most of the other primary rocks, have not this property, being _fissile_ only in one plane, so that quarries of those rocks generally turn out very uncouth or irregular stones, which, though they may in some favourable cases possess good natural _beds_, will always be found to have ragged and irregular _joints_, which, for the most part, are incapable of being properly dressed. [18] This term in Scotland denotes the removal of the soil and unsolid material, in order to lay bare the rock previous to working the quarry, and seems obviously to be derived from the Latin “terra,” perhaps through the medium of some old charter. The quantity of terring very much affects the profitable working of a quarry. CHAPTER V. OPERATIONS OF 1839. ~Shipping Station and Pier at Hynish.~ During the winter months which intervened between November 1838 and March 1839, a small detachment of men, consisting of three masons, nine quarriers, and one smith, were left at Hynish under the superintendence of Mr Charles Barclay, to clear the landing-place of several patches of rock which encumbered the entrance. They were also to build some walls of inclosure, and to quarry and dress stones for the pier and other buildings at Hynish. The provision of accommodation for shipping at that place was now naturally regarded as of more urgent necessity than formerly, because the importation of stones from Mull, which the failure of the Tyree stone had rendered unavoidable, led to the necessity of a reshipment of all the materials at Hynish, where they were dressed before being sent to the Rock. It may, perhaps, be naturally enough imagined, that instead of importing the materials to be dressed at Tyree and there reshipped in order to be carried to the Rock, they might have been prepared in Mull, and sent directly to the Skerryvore; but many things concurred to render this inexpedient, if not altogether impracticable. The advantage of being able, by means of a good telescope, in some measure to ascertain the state of the sea at the Rock, the comparative shortness of the passage, which gave the prospect of several cargoes being landed on it in one day during fine weather, and the convenience of communicating with the Rock by signal, were circumstances in themselves quite sufficient to determine my choice in favour of Hynish, as the place from which the materials must