FOUND IN THE QUARRY OF CRAIGLEITH. 237 



natural history ; and when it is known how much this country, 

 I may say our immediate neighbourhood, abounds in fossils 

 of this description, it is rather to be lamented that no exten- 

 sive collection of them, has been systematically made. In ge- 

 neral they are much too bulky for usual sized cabinets ; and if 

 some place were appropriated for their reception in the Mu- 

 seum of the Royal Society, I have no doubt they would soon 

 accumulate. For besides in the vicinity of Edinburgh and 

 Dalkeith, they are found in immense abundance all along the 

 coast of Fife, down to St Andrew's. Within high-water 

 mark near Dysart, there are trees equal in bulk to the cele- 

 brated fossil lately found in the quarry at Cowcaddens near 

 Glasgow, which has the strongest possible resemblance to an 

 oak ; and in the quarry of Cullalo, five or six miles from Burnt- 

 island, belonging to Mr Stuart of Dunearn, the whole of the 

 upper stratum of a most extensive field of sandstone, is filled 

 with them to an extent beyond any thing I have ever seen. It 

 was in this locality that a specimen was found, which was sent 

 by Mr Ferguson of Raith to tlie College ; it appeared to be 

 some species of Reed, of a truly gigantic size ; its form is ellip- 

 tic, and it measures about a foot by eight inches in diameter, 

 and is in length seven or eight feet. 



Having such stores of these fossils in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, it is no small reproach to us to be without a collec- 

 tion. On the Continent, I am told, an antediluvian Flora is 

 now in preparation ; and with such means at our disposal, why 

 should we not have an antediluvian Hortus Siccus ? 



G g 2 XVI. 



