There is another whirl-pool off a little ifle, on the weft end
o f Jura i which contributes to the horrors of the place. In
great ftorms, the tides, run at the rate of fifteen miles an hour ;
the height o f the boilings are faid to be dreadful; and the whole
rage o f the waters .unfpeakable. It is not therefore wonderful
that there ihould have been here a chapel of the V i r g in , whofe
alfiftance was often invoked, Tor my hiftorian * fays, that ihe
worked numbers o f miracles, doubtlefsly in favor o f diftreffed
mariners.
Scarba contains forty inhabitants. Mr. Mac-leane the proprietor
refides here. When he favored us with his company, he came
with two of his fons and their tutor; for in North Britain, there
is no gentleman of ever fo fmall an eftate, but ftriftly attends to
the education of his children, as the fure foundation o f their future
fortune. A perfon properly qualified and eafily procured at
a cheap rate, attends in the family; where the father fees that
juftice is done to them, at far lefs expence than if he fent them to
diftant fchools.
Leave Scarba; pafs between Nether-Lorn and the ifles of Lu-
ing and Suit to the Eaft, and of Tvracy and Shrna to the Weft all
inhabited; and the firft almoft covered with excellent corn. In
1 vracy is an ancient tower once belonging to the great Mac-donald
who made it his half-way hunting feat in his progrefs from Cantyre
to his northern ifles: for which reafon it was called Dog-cajlle; and
here he made it a moft laudable rule to refide, till he had fpent the
whole of his revenue collefted in the neighborhood. According to
* Rordun, lib. n . c. 49»
•the
the R e p o r t *, thefe ifles, and part o f the neighboring mainlandj
form a pariih, whofe church is in Suil.
Take boat; turn at the point of Suil, am carrried by a rapid E u s d a l e s l a t e
tide through the gut of Cuan, vifit Eufdale, the noted flate ifland;. RIES'
whofe length is about half a mile, and compofed entirely of flate,
interfered, and in fome parts covered, with whin-ftone, to the
thicknefs of fixteen feet : the ftratum o f flate is-thirty-fix, dipping
quick S. E. to-N. W. In order to be railed, it is at firft blafted
with powder ; the greater pieces are then divided, carried off in
wheel-barrows, and laftly fplit into the merchantable fizes, from
eighteen by fourteen inches, to nine by fix : and put on board at
the price of twenty Ihillingsper thoufand. About two millions and
a half are fold annually to England, Norway; Canada, and the
Wejl-Indies. In the liâtes are multitudes of cubic -pyritæ. In one
place, about fixteen feet above high-water-mark, juft over the
Hates, is a thick bed o f fmall fragments, worn fmooth, as if by
the aftion of the waves ; and mixed with them are multitudes o f
the common fea Ihells : a proof o f the vaft retreat o f the ocean in
thefe parts.
There, are many other good flate qtiarrries in this neighborhood',
as, on the ifles of Suil, Luing, Balna-hua and Kerr era, and fome
few. oppofite to them on the coaft o f Nether-Lorn.
The boat takes us the length of the Weftern fide of Suil.' At
the North point, turn into Clachan Eirth, the narroweft lirait I ever
was in, dividing that' iflànd from Lorn, in parts fo contrafted as
would admit the flinging an arch from Ihore to ftiore. The depth
*■ Made by the gentlemen fent, in 1760, by order of the G e n e r a l A s s e m b l y , ,
to infpett the ftate of religion in thfc iflands, &c. M;‘ S.
11 h h 2 is.