OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur's Seat 304
in places where the sandstone has been quarried
(as the craigs were for years to pave the streets of
London), beautiful specimens have been obtained of
radiated haematites, intermixed with steatites, green
fibrous iron ore, and calcareous spar, a most uncommon
mixture.
the glacier are to be found all over these craigs and
Arthur's Seat, and on various parts are found rounded
' boulders, some of which have been worked backwards
and forwards till left at last, stranded by the
farewell ebb of an ancient sea.
The rocky cone of Arthur's Seat is strongly mag-
PLAN OF ARTHUR'S SEAT (THE SANCTUARY OF HOLYROOD).
veins of calcareous spar, talc, zoolite, and amethystine
quartzose crystals; and strange to say several
large blocks of the same greenstone of which they .
are composed are to be found on Arthur's Seat, at
elevations of from eighty to 200 feet above the
craigs.
In ascending the steep path which leads from
Holyrood to the top of the latter, we pass over
layers of sandstone which show ripple marks-the
work of the ice-of unknown ages, grinding and
depositing pebbles, coarse sand, and sedimentary
rock. The bluffs above the path must have had
many a hard struggle, when glaciers crashed against
tion of men of science to this circumstance in 183 I,
when he stated that at some points he found the
needle completely reversed. (Edn. PhiZ. Juurnal,
No. XXII.)
Concerning the origin of the name of this remarkable
mountain, and that of the adjacent craigs,
there have been many theories. Arthur is a name
of-frequent occurrence in Scottish, as well as Welsh
and English topography, and is generally traced by
tradition to the famous Arthur of romance, and
who figures so much in half-fabulous history. From
this prince, who is said to have reigned over Strathclyde
from 508 to 542, when he was shin at the
