CHAPTER IL. 
The Old Red Sandstone. — Till very lately its Existence as a distinct 
Formation disputed. — Still little known. —Its great Importance in 
the Geological Scale. — Illustration. —'The North of Scotland gir- 
dled by an immense Belt of Old Red Sandstone. — Line of the Gir- 
dle along the Coast. — Marks of vast Denudation. — Its Extent par- 
tially indicated by Hills on the Western Coast of Ross-shire. —'The 
System of Great Depth in the North of Scotland. — Difficulties in 
the way of estimating the Thickness of Deposits. — Peculiar Formas 
tion of Hill. — Illustrated by Ben Nevis. — Caution to the Geological 
Critic. — Lower Old Red Sandstone immensely developed in Caith- 
ness. — Sketch of the Geology of that County. — Its strange Grour. 
of Fossils. — Their present place of Sepulture.— Their ancient 
Habitat. — Agassiz. — Amazing Progress of Fossil Ichthyology dur- 
ing the last few Years. — Its Nomenclature. — Learned Names repel 
unlearned Readers. — Not a great deal in them. 
“ Tue Old Red Sandstone,” says a Scottish geologist, in a 
digest of some recent geological discoveries, which appeared 
a short time ago in an Edinburgh newspaper, “ has been hith- 
erto considered as remarkably barren of fossils.”” The re- 
mark is expressive of a pretty general opinion among geolo- 
gists of even the present time, and I quote it on this account. 
Only a few years have gone by since men of no low standing 
in the science disputed the very existence of this formation — 
system rather, for it contains at least three distinct formations ; 
and but for the influence of one accomplished geologist, the 
celebrated author of the Silurian System, it would have been 
probably degraded from its place in the scale altogether. 
“You must inevitably give up the Old Red Sandstone,” said 
an ingenious foreigner to Mr. Murchison, when on a visit to 
England about four years ago, and whose celebrity among his 
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