76 Transactions. 
varying in some parts to a purplish tint. It is very hard 
and durable, and makes an excellent building material, being 
much used in the locality. There are associated with the Grau- 
wackes a thin flaggy grit, and black Graptolitic shales, so often 
found in the scores and burns, which are formed in the hill sides 
by denudation. Fragments of these black shales may be found 
among the gravel in the bed of the Annan, six or seven miles 
distant from the parent rock at Hartfell, and I have frequently 
picked up some very good specimens brought down in this way. 
There is also a red sandstone rock, said to be of the Permian Age, 
which is found largely at the base of the hills, and in some parts 
has been denuded and carried a considerable distance into the 
valleys, where it is in many places mixed with small pieces of the 
Silurian grit, giving an idea that the hills had been covered with 
this red sandstone at an early epoch, before it was washed down 
to the base of the hills and there preserved. One of the best 
exposures of it is to be found in sections along the burn from 
Hartfell, a short distance off the main road going up to the 
well, and in other parts such as at Beldcraig, Wellburn, and 
Frenchland burn. I have no doubt it is the equivalent of the 
Corncockle moor stone, but by no means equal to it, as it does 
not seem to be fit for any economic purpose whatever. 
There are few trap dykes or outbursts of igneous rocks 
observable in the locality, except at Coatshill Quarry, which is 
wrought for road metal, &c. There is also another exposure of 
the same dyke now in the railway cutting between Moffat and 
Beattock, which was visited by this Society last summer (August 
4th, 1884). We may safely state that there are none of the 
other rock formations which appear to have received such a 
crushing and contorting as these old Silurian rocks; and it is 
remarkable that there are so few faults to be found in the 
district of any magnitude. 
We find the black Graptolitic shales in bands, tilted up at 
different angles from their original bed, in many parts inverted, 
while very frequently they are of a folding character, existing in 
bands of various heights, from three to five or six feet in thick- 
ness, with a parting of a white kind of pipe clay, of from two 
inches to six inches in thickness, which gets exceedingly hard 
when in a dry situation. The black Graptolitic shales seem to 
be composed of a dark mud, slowly and quietly laid down in a 
deep sea bottom, swarming with Graptolites and Crustacea, with 
