The east coast of Scotland is generally bleak, though in many parts it is extremely fertile, and may be cited as a model of good cultivation; and the midland and southern counties are not inferior either in the quality of the soil or the excellence of the husbandry. To the west the country is wildly picturesque; the coast of the Atlantic, penetrated by the sea, which is covered with islands, bears a strong resemblance to that of Norway. There cannot be a doubt that the Hebrides formed part of the mainland at some remote geological period, since they follow the direction of the mountain system in two parallel lines of rugged and imposing aspect, never exceeding the height of 3200 feet. The undulating country on the borders of Scotland becomes higher in the west of England and North Wales, where the hills are wild, but the valleys are cultivated like gardens, and the English lake-scenery is of the most gentle beauty. Evergreen Ireland is mostly a mountainous country, and opposes to the Atlantic storms an iron-bound coast of the wildest aspect; but it is rich in arable land and pasture, and possesses the most picturesque lake-scenery: indeed, freshwater lakes in the mountain valleys, so peculiarly characteristic of the European system, are the great ornaments of the high lands of Britain. Various parts of the British islands were dry land while most of the continent of Europe was yet below the ancient ocean. The high land of Lammermuir and the Grampian hills in Scotland, and those of Cumberland in England, were raised before the Alps had begun to appear above the waves. In general, all the highest parts of the British mountains are of granite and stratified crystalline rocks. The primary fossiliferous strata are of immense thickness in Cumberland and in the north of Wales, and the old red sandstone, many hundred feet thick, stretches from sea to sea along the flanks of the Grampians. The coal strata are developed on a great scale in the south of Scotland and the north of England; and examples of every formation, with the exception of the muschelkalk, are to be found in these islands. Volcanic fires had been very active in early times, and nowhere is the columnar structure more beautifully exhibited than in Fingal’s Cave and the Storr of Skye, in the Hebrides: and in the north of Ireland a base of 800 square miles of mica-slate is covered with volcanic rocks, which end on the coast in the magnificent columns of the Giant’s Causeway.