The Bass Rock : its civil and ecclesiastic history / by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, D. D. Geology, by Hugh Miller. Martyrology, by the Rev. James Anderson. Zoology and botany by Professor Fleming and Professor Balfour.
- Thomas M'Crie
- Date:
- 1848]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Bass Rock : its civil and ecclesiastic history / by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, D. D. Geology, by Hugh Miller. Martyrology, by the Rev. James Anderson. Zoology and botany by Professor Fleming and Professor Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[4] seats to the stranger one of the most striking objects on entering the mouth of the Firth ; and to the visitor in summer, when the dark-browed rock is encircled with myriads of sea-fowl, wheeling around it in all va- rieties of plumage, and screaming in all the notes of the aquatic scale, when it may be said, The Isle is full of noises, Sounds, and urild airs, that give delight, and hurt not, the scene appears like enchantment, and leaves an im- pression not easily forgotten. But leaving to be described by more competent hands, those natural features of the Bass which have remained unchanged by the lapse of ages, it falls to my lot to record scenes and events connected with its his- tory which are past and gone—never, we hope, to re- turn. About half way up the southern slope of the rock, are the remains of an ancient chapel, pointing to an early date, and associated Avitli the introduction of Christianity into Scotland. At the base of the same slope, clinging as it were to the sides of the precipice, are the moulder- ing walls of a fortification, Avithin which a number of our pious countrymen Avere incarcerated during the reigns of the last Stuarts. These tAvo ruins, between Aidiich, judging even from their outward aspect and structure, there occurs a chasm of some duration, are curiously enough suggestive of the two periods to which our re- searches extend ; the interval betAveen the first and the second embracing Avhat hate been truly called the dark ages—dark in an historical as well as religious sense ; for it is a remarkable fact, that the lights of history shine more brightly on our earlier annals, when the simplicity of the Christian faith was retained, than on later times when the Pope reigned paramount in](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24867974_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
