MR MILNE ON THE GEOLOGY OF ROXBURGHSHIRE. 



437 



be deposited in those places : the gravel formed of those indurated broken bodies 

 worn round by attrition, evince that fact." 



At every place where I have examined the conglomerate of this formation 

 whether in contact with the greywacke or not I have found that Dr BUTTON'S 

 remark is true, viz. that the pebbles composing it consist chiefly of greywacke 

 strata, and partly of other rocks, such as porphyries, which will be afterwards 

 shown, from other evidence, to have been previously existing. In the Catlie Burn, 

 the pebbles consist chiefly of grey wacke, quartz, and porphyries. 



The place where I observed the conglomerate in the largest masses, is near 

 Earlston. There are escarpments of it there, several hundred feet thick. The 

 lowest parts of the county are, generally speaking, those in which the conglome- 

 rate beds are thickest and coarsest. 



In some places, the red sandstone formation is seen resting on the greywacke 

 rocks Avithout any conglomerate interposed, as, for example, at South-dean manse. 

 The lowest stratum there is a dark red clay, with streaks of yellow in it ; and a 

 little farther off, this turns into a soft yellow sandstone. The following woodcut 

 represents an interesting junction of the old red sandstone rocks and the grey- 

 wacke strata, on the river Jed, about half a mile below the North Lodge of Edger- 

 stone. 



North 



South 



AB and CD are strata of Old Red Sandstone, resting on the nearly vertical 

 strata of greywacke. The length of the section is about 300 yards, and the height 

 25 yards. 



At a few places in the county, I have seen the Old Red sandstone rocks, if not 

 resting contiguously on the porphyritic or felspathic rocks, to be afterwards de- 

 scribed, at all events lying so close to the latter, as to leave no doubt that they 

 have been deposited upon the latter. In these cases, however, which all occur in 

 the higher parts of the county, near the Cheviot Hills, there was no conglomerate. 



The white strata of sandstone are peculiar, not only for their perfect white- 

 ness, but also for that quality which geologists have termed saccharine. Yet they 

 are not very crystalline in then- texture, but are soft and fine-grained. These white 

 sandstones are worked at the top of a hill between Minto and Belshaes (where it 

 rises a little towards a trap-hill west-north-west of it), and on the north side of 



VOL. xv. PART in. 6 c 



