Presentations. IjO? 



Mr Robert Wallace indicated their significance in the following note: 

 — These specimens were obtained from the limestones on the 

 Arbigland shore. They have been sent to Mr Arthur Maccono- 

 chie, Palteontologist of the Scottish Geographical Survey, who 

 has named them. They make a very valuable addition to the 

 other fossils of Carboniferous Age, which have been collected 

 from various localities in this area. There are twenty-three 

 specimens, classified in the following natural orders: — 1. Bra- 

 chiopoda, containing several product! which are generally known 

 as owl's heads. 2. Gasteropoda, with their delicate and wondrous 

 tracery. 3. Actinozoa includes some fine examples of cup corals. 



4. The CephaloiDoda is represented by a beautifid Orthooeras, 

 with its various stages of progressive life engraven on the stone. 



5. Some encrinite stems give us a glimpse of that mysterious 

 borderland between the animal and the vegetable world. The 

 ctollection is representative of the different types of shellfish 

 that swarmed the vast Carboniferous Seas, hundreds of millions 

 of j'ears ago. Wlien compared with their successors of to-day — 

 the mussels, cockles, and nautilis of our shores — we see at a 

 glance that the race has been to the swift and the battle to the 

 strong. Carboniferous rocks stretch from Carsethorn past 

 Southerness to Colvend, with an occasional ^strip at Rascarrel 

 Bay and White Port on the Rerrick coast. The same group 

 re-appears at Comlongon, and is continued past Hoddom, 

 Ecclefechan, and Canonbie into Liddesdale. Strata of the same 

 age floor the bed of the Solwaj', and give at Maryport valuable 

 coal seams of oonsidjrable thickness. Various attempts have 

 been made on the Kirkbean shore to discover coal of workable 

 value. At Powillimont there is a small band a few inches 

 thick. If we ascend the Kirkbean burn towards the Ci'iffel 

 granite we find an outcrop of red sandstones belonging to the 

 Old Red Sandstone period. From this small remnant of the 

 former massive deposits of Old Red Sandstone the burn cuts 

 through a continuous section of various strata until the shore 

 is i-eached, and there we find tlie highest band exposed on the 

 shore in front of the gardener's cottage. During tiie deposition 

 of the Old Red Sandstones that are found high up the burn 

 this locality was part of a great desert, containing large inland 

 seas. The water was extremelj' salt and highly charged with 

 oxide of iron, wliicli gave the rocks their deep red colour. 

 Adjacent to the sandstones is a thin cake of lava, which has 

 also been dissected by the burn. This stream of lava, which 

 flowed along the ocean floor in early Carboniferous times, must 

 have been of large dimensions. It broadens out in Middlebie, 

 and forms a prominent escarpment at Birrenewark. From 

 there it extends to Eskdale and Liddesdale, and re-appears 

 again in the North of England, fringing all the Carboniferous 

 outcrops of the Lake District. From the volcanic lava down the 

 stream fx) Kirkbean village we find thin limestones and shales. 



