1-158-163 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Strata of red sandstone, slightly inclined, Siccar Point, Berwickshire 1852. It is illustrating nonconformable strata, and so long time scale. In his biography of Hutton, Playfair, remembering being taken to Siccar Point by his teacher, Hutton, wrote The mind seemed to grow giddy looking so far into the abyss of time: and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow. From A Manual of Elementary Geology, Charles Lyell, London, 1852.