The Trotternish Sill, 1832
Leonhard, Karl Cäsar von (1779-1862). Die Basalt-Gebilde in ihren Beziehungen zu normalen und abnormen Felsmassen. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart’s Verlags-Handlung, 1832.
Salisbury Crags and Stirling Castle became quite well known to geologists as places to observe the intrusion of whinstone into pre-existing limestone. A third site was discovered by John MacCulloch on the Isle of Skye. There is a location on the northern shore, at Trotternish, where there is a long three-fingered sill of whinstone that intrudes between the layers of limestone. MacCulloch first illustrated the Trotternish sill in a paper, and it was picked up by many other writers as further evidence of the volcanic origin of whinstone.
Leonhard’s book on basalt formations illustrates a great number of intrusions, often putting five or six on a single plate. We reproduce a detail of the plate that depicts the Trotternish sill.
Geikie 1905, The Founders of Geology, p. 262.