G26 FOUKTH REPORT— 1834. 



ravines of the mountain torrents of these hills wherein masses 

 of trap may not be perceived insinuating themselves, even 

 among the grauwacke strata, and deriving from them a stratified 

 appearance. The grauwacke strata, from this cause, have been 

 dislocated and contorted in a thousand different ways, and there- 

 fore exhibit no uniformity in their dip and direction. But 

 there is still on the whole, and more particularly in those parts 

 which have not been disturbed by immediate contiguity to trap, 

 a tendency to a particular direction or run, viz. from east to 

 west. The texture of the rock is finely granular, and is gene- 

 rally of a greenish, or sometimes of a yellowish brown colour. 

 Occasionally it passes into a slate which is quarried for various 

 purposes. 



No fossils have been found in the grauwacke rocks, nor any 

 mineral except copper. There are in several parts of the Lam- 

 mermuir range, veins of this metal, some of which have been 

 worked, as at Elmfond, Fasgney, and Norton, and run in a di- 

 rection very nearly east and west. 



II. The next series of rocks, in descending from the hills, is 

 the old red sandstone formation, which rests on the flanks of 

 the Lammermuirs. They consist of a coarse conglomerate at 

 their basis, of a slaty sandstone in their central parts, and of 

 soft beds of unconsolidated sand or clay in their upper parts. 



This formation not only flanks the base of the grauwacke 

 range, but is found filling all the ravines and valleys of these 

 hills up to a certain level. The series is one apparently of in- 

 considerable thickness at the sides of the hills where it rests on 

 them ; but towards the plains, and at a distance from the hills, 

 it is found to be of great depth. In the upper parts of Lammer- 

 muir the conglomerate appears to have a thickness of no more 

 than 10 or 20 feet, whilst on the banks of the Tweed, between 

 Kelso and Melrose, there are cliffs of conglomerate 80 or 100 

 feet high. The same remark applies to the sandstones, which 

 have been deposited over the conglomerate, deep sections of them 

 being visible on the Tweed, whilst in the upper parts of Lau- 

 derdale they are much more shallow. This fact, Mr. Milne ob- 

 served, could be at once accounted for on the supposition that 

 these old red sandstone rocks had been deposited in an ocean or 

 sea which washed the sides of the Lammermuir hills, and in- 

 creased in depth at a distance from them. The grauwacke 

 strata, on which the conglomerate of this formation has been 

 deposited, must have formed the bed of that ancient ocean ; and 

 accordingly, though the conglomerate presents great unevenness 

 and irregularities in its level, the upper part of the red sand- 

 stone series very nearly occupies one level throughout the whole 



