642 FOURTH REPORT — 1834. 



Fifeshire District. Edinburgh District. 



29 beds of coal. 26 beds. 



119 feet 6 inches. 109 feet. 



The two seams of coal, the workings of which have lately been 

 resumed on the estate of Captain Boswell at Wardie, have ap- 

 parently been thrown out of their natural position by some dis- 

 turbance : they rise from the beach near that place in a saddle 

 form, having on the east side an inclination of one in seven, and 

 dipping to the west at an angle of one in fourteen. The coal is 

 said to be of caking quality, which is rarely met with in these 

 coal-fields : one of the Dunnshire seams, marked No. 25. in 

 Mr. Landale'splan, appears to be the only coal of this description 

 in the Fifeshire district. It is a smith's coal, and of the same 

 thickness as the upper bed at Wardie ; but it would not be easy 

 to trace any other connexion between them, although the coal 

 of Wardie evidently extends across the firth to the opposite 

 coast. 



The nodules of ironstone, of which there is a great abundance 

 in the bituminous shale of Wardie, are very remarkable ; for 

 scarcely one is to be found that does not contain an organic 

 nucleus, either a coprolite or some portion of a fossil fish. Si- 

 milar nodules, containing the same remains, have been also ob- 

 served on the opposite shore and at Inchkeith. 



The specimens of coprolites and fossil fishes which were ex- 

 hibited by Mr. Trevelyan at the Cambridge Meeting, were from 

 this locality, and additional specimens were now produced. 



On the Ossiferous Beds contained in the Basins of the Forth, 

 the Clyde, and the Tay, By Dr. Hibbert. 



The author pointed out, in a general manner, the order of suc- 

 cession observed by the beds which were deposited later than the 

 primary and transition schists. These were the peculiar grey mi- 

 caceous sandstone, principally to be found on the north of the 

 Tay, known by the name of the Arbroath pavement ; the red 

 sandstone, into which the Arbroath pavement passes ; and the 

 stupendous masses of conglomerate materials, formed by rolled 

 fragments of primary and transition rocks, which repose at the 

 foot of the Grampians. It was incidently stated that, near 

 Cratown, the conglomerate strata were traversed by a trap rock, 

 containing large crystals of glassy felspar, which gave to it the 

 exact character of one of the modern trachji;es of the Sieben- 

 gebirge. The conglomerate rocks were supposed to have been 

 formed at two distinct epochs. The author expressed a sus- 



