CHAPTER VIII.

Imaginary Autobiography of the _Clach Malloch_ Boulder--Its Creation--Its Long Night of unsummed Centuries--Laid open to light on a desert Island--Surrounded by an Arctic Vegetation--Undermined by the rising Sea--Locked up and floated off on an Ice-field--At rest on the Sea-bottom--Another Night of unsummed Years--The Boulder raised again above the waves by the rising of the Land--Beholds an Altered Country--Pine Forests and Mammals--Another Period of Ages passes--The Boulder again floated off by an Iceberg--Finally at rest on the Shore of Cromarty Bay--Time and Occasion of naming it--Strange Phenomena accounted for by Earthquakes--How the Boulder of Petty Bay was moved--The Boulder of Auldgrande--The old Highland Paupers--The little Parsi Girl--Her Letter to her Papa--But one Human Nature on Earth--Journey resumed--Conon Burying Ground--An aged Couple--Gossip. 375