It will come as no surprise to learn that the magnificent landscape of Scotland has attracted geologists from all over the world. Since the 18th century, when the celebrated naturalist Sir Joseph Banks first publicised the extraordinary rock formations at Staffa, scientists have been visiting the country keen to discover and understand what is revealed in the old rocks. What is less well known beyond the confines of the geological community is just how extraordinary the geology of the far north actually is, and the struggle involved in reaching an understanding of it. The second half of the 19th century was a time of vigorous, even confrontational debate within geological circles as to exactly how, and in what order the rocks of Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty had been laid down. It was a classic scenario, in which the establishment, in the form of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, suggested a model which was challenged, first by a lone voice, and eventually by many outside the inner circle, including amateurs, some of whom played a key part in establishing the true nature of the geology of the region.
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Staffa, a ‘Veritable Marvel’
Sir Joseph Banks was on his way to Iceland when he was led to Staffa in 1762. His report of what he found there excited scientists throughout Europe, not least in France, where they had recently come to understand that the centre of their own country contained extinct volcanoes. A debate started on the The 1861 Geological Map of Scotland by Murchison & Geikie, which carried geological thinking for some 20 years before their theory was disproved nature of volcanic basalt rock, with theories as wild as the suggestion that the columns one finds so perfectly displayed at Staffa were in fact solidified bamboo shoots. Faujas de St Fond was the first geologist to visit the island, arriving from France in 1784. The account of his journey was published in 1797, titled Voyage en Angleterre, en Ecosse, et Aux Iles Hebrides, and it is as much a travelogue as a serious scientific treatise. After a rather boozy dinner organised by the Royal Society in London, at which brandy, rum and champagne ‘soon put all the company in good humour’, Faujas prepared to
