284 Mr. J. S. Patrick on the Fossil Vegetables 



tained from a quarry in the parish of Stevenston, where I was 

 principally residing. The quarry, which is on the estate of Mr. 

 Warner of Ardeer, belongs to the carboniferous group^ and is 

 considered the most valuable for white sandstone in the west of 

 Scotland. It is thus spoken of in the ' New Statistical Account' 

 (p. 437):- 



" This is the most valuable quarry of white freestone in the 

 west of Scotland. The produce of it has long been well known 

 to the public under the name of ' Stevenston stone.' It is of 

 very excellent quality ; the colour is good, and being firm and fine 

 in the grain and easily wrought, it takes a fine polish and stands 

 well. It is much used at home, and it is still more in request in 

 Dublin and Belfast and other places in Ireland, for it can be sawn 

 like marble, with which it vies in beauty ; and it can be formed 

 into slabs of any size required. At home and also in Ireland, it 

 is used in the interior of houses for stairs, the pavement of lob- 

 bies and halls,^ and for chimney-pieces, &c. ; and externally it is 

 employed in public and private buildings for fronts, chimneys, 

 columns, &c. Columns can be furnished of any dimensions from 

 10 to 20 feet and upwards in altitude. It is used for tombstones, 

 gate-posts, &c. The quarry lies from S.W. to N.E., and the dip 

 is to the S.W., the same as the coal strata, between the first and 

 second of which it is found. It is in irregular layers or posts, 

 varying from 6 inches to 6 feet in thickness. It requires to be 

 bared, where it is at present wrought, of about 25 feet of differ- 

 ent kinds of soil ; viz. of about 4 feet of sand, 3 feet of loam, and 

 the rest, down to the rock, till or slate-clay. The stone passes 

 from the quarry to Saltcoats and Ardrossan by railway, and is 

 there shipped," &c. 



The coal has been wrought out from beneath it within the re- 

 membrance of the present generation. The sandstone has been 

 quarried to the depth of above 20 feet, and it goes about 20 feet 

 deeper. In the ' New Statistical Account,' in a note at the foot of 

 page 429, the Rev. author, after mentioning that there have been 

 about seventy specimens of subfossil shells found in the coal-field, 

 and naming twelve kinds not now found in a recent state on the 

 shore, goes on to say, " We have had the pleasure of picking up 

 abundance of these shells where they are boring the rock at Ar- 

 deer or Stevenston quarry. There the shells are only 5 feet under 

 the green sward. At this depth there is a bed of coarse sea-sand, 

 mixed Avith Turbo littoreus, &c. &c., the whelks and limpets and 

 cockles being sound and entire. Under this bed of gravel and 

 sand and shells there is a stratum of solid till or slate-clay 10 or 

 12 feet thick, overlying the beautiful sandstone of the quarry. 

 This schistus is perforated in innumerable places to the depth of 

 5 or 6 inches by Pholas crispata or the Borer, in the same man- 



