300. In the mountains of our own country, some difficulties concerning the stratification of granite have also occurred. In Arran, for instance, the mountain of Goatfield, which I have mentioned above as affording an instance of granite sending out many veins into the schistus, and rivetted, as it were, by means of them to the superincumbent rock, when I visited it, with, a view of verifying on the spot the interesting observations which Dr Hutton had there made, appeared to me to be without any vestige of stratification in its granitic part, as did also the whole group of mountains to which it belongs. It was, therefore, not without a good deal of surprise, that I lately read, in an account of that island, by a very accurate and ingenious mineralogist, that Goatfield consists of stratified granite.[154] The impression which the appearance of that mountain made on my mind, is just the reverse; and though I saw large tabular masses, sometimes nearly vertical, separated by fissures, they appeared to be much too irregular, too little extended in length and height, and vastly too much in thickness, to be reckoned the effects of stratification. For all this, I would by no means be understood to set my observations in opposition to those of Mr Jameson. In my visit to Arran, I did not direct my inquiries much toward this point; the general appearance of the rocks did not suggest the necessity of doing so, and I was not perfectly aware how much the stratification of granite had been insisted on by some mineralogists; so that I applied myself entirely to study some other of the interesting phenomena which this little island offers in so great abundance. I therefore carry my confidence in the appearances which seemed to indicate a want of stratification in the granite of Arran no further than to remain sceptical both as to Mr Jameson's conclusions and my own, till an opportunity shall occur of verifying the one or the other by actual observation. [Footnote 154: Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles, vol. i. p. 35, 36.]