52 



Calder, where a good section is exposed, the lowest rock is said to be 

 sandstone, above which the following strata may be enumerated in 

 an ascending order; — A yellowish coarse limestone, 16 feet thick ; — 

 limestone, 43 feet thick, in which vegetable remains are contained, 

 such as are usually found in coal-fields, and, along with these, scales 

 of Saurian reptiles ; — nine feet of a very bituminous shale, part of 

 which burns readily, mixed with ironstone ; — shale (named Blaes) 

 16 feet ; — and, at the top of the series, an alluvial covering of clay, 

 sand, &c. in which large boulders occur. 



Another site, where a fresh-water limestone crops out, is Kirkton, 

 situated a mile or more east of Bathgate. Very interesting pheno- 

 mena are here exhibited. The chemical action under which the de- 

 posit was elaborated, appears to have been so powerful as to have 

 caused such miscellaneous earthy matters as are found to enter into 

 the composition of an impure limestone, like that of Kirkton, to se- 

 parate into laminae, and to assume a sort of striped or ribb ned 

 disposition, resembling what the author has occasionally noticed in 

 Auvergne, where tertiary strata have come into contact with vol- 

 canic rocks. The strata, for instance, of Kirkton quarry, are com- 

 posed of distinct and alternating thin laminae, some of them being of 

 remarkable tenuity, variously consisting either of pure calcareous 

 matter, of translucent silex, resembling common flint, or of a mixed 

 argillaceous substance, approaching porcellanite in its character, or 

 of ferruginous, or even of bituminous layers ; and the surface of the 

 two latter description of laminae has often a sort of blistered appear- 

 ance, as if from the effect of heat. Frequently also, in the purer 

 limestone, a globularly concretional structure is observable. The 

 whole of the strata of Kirkton quarry shew a kind of warping or cur- 

 vature, which is to be traced no less in small detached specimens of 

 the rock than in the contortions or wavings which are exhibited 

 among the strata upon a large scale.* 



All these appearances, in connexion with the remarkable circum- 

 stance, that greenish-coloured beds of trap-tuff of igneous origin, ori- 

 ginally pyhaps ejected in the form of a hot tufaceous mud, are 

 interposed among the strata in divers places, one of which has ac- 

 quired the thickness of nine feet, lead to the conclusion, that the 

 calcareous beds of Kirkton in their elaboration were in immediate 

 contiguity with some volcanic focus, and that in their original de- 



" This limestone is extensively quarried for burning, and the Author has 

 understood, that, although very impure, it possesses qualities which particu- 

 larly recommenil it to the use of the agriculturist. These are well deserving 

 of further investigation. 



