36 



found in large numbers throughout the basin of the Old 

 Red in the North, aud some of them of a high order, such 

 as Holoptychius nobilissimus. Those Old Red fishes 

 were among the first of vertebrate life. According to 

 Murchison, fishes first appear in " the Ludlow zone of the 

 upper Silurian." It matters not, evolution teaches that 

 from them all vertebrate life has been evolved. Did 

 no creature exist upon the land in those mighty aeons of 

 time ? It is only the sea that has divulged a few secrets 

 by the giving up of its dead. The land could not, because 

 then, as now, when they died, they decayed and left no 

 trace of their existence. Yet it is hard to believe that no 

 creature higher than a worm or an insect lived on the land 

 when so many forms of life teemed in the seas. Are 

 palaeontologists sure they are correct ? 



Another fact pointed out by Messrs. Peach and 

 Home is the great volcanic activity which was going on 

 in what is now Shetland, and the comparative tran- 

 quillity of the basin lying between that part and the 

 mass of mountains which towered above the waters. But 

 pass beyond them to the Old Red in Central Scotland, 

 and the scene again changes. Sub-marine volcanoes 

 belched forth their molten floods amidst the hissing- 

 waters. Under this condition of things there may be an 

 explanation of that curious band of rough concretionary 

 limestone called Cornstone, which lies in the lap of the 

 Old Red of Moray. Hugh Miller first suggested the 

 theory, viz., that it was formed through calcareous springs. 

 It is not a newer formation than what it rests upon, and 

 has no connection with any other formation in the North. 

 Taking that along with its peculiar position, which looks 

 as if it had flowed, river-like, from a given point or 

 points in a line running from south-west to north-east, 

 the explanation of its existence seems simple and natural. 



