DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND. 389 
pletest sets of Liassic belemnites yet collected. What have been 
deemed corresponding deposits, which, however, I am disposed 
to refer to a higher horizon, occur in the neighborhood of the 
northern Sutor; and near the base of one of these, at Caanrie, 
there is a seam of coal or lignite very much resembling that of 
Brora, and flanked by a bed of fresh water shells and Perna, 
the last identical in species, so far as I have been able to deter- 
mine the point, with that of the Perna bed described by the 
late Mr. Robertson of Woodside as flanking the Brora seam. 
Above the coal there occurs a rubbly stratum, also like one at 
Brora, charged with vast numbers of the Belemnite sulcatus ; 
and in an upper stratum I found a well-marked specimen of 
Ammonites perarmatus ; likewise a species of the Brora coal- 
field. In short, I am disposed to hold, — both from the identity 
of many of its fossils, and its general appearance, — that this 
supposed Liassic deposit is in reality an Oolitic one, and that 
its coal occupies a horizon not much removed from that of the 
coal at Brora. J may here mention, that the Lias of Eathie 
was the scene, only two years ago, of a disastrous coal-boring 
speculation, on which much good money was expended. The 
unlucky speculator, —an industrious and respectable man, whom 
I would fain have dissuaded from an undertaking so hopeless, 
but who, as he had no faith in geology, simply thanked me for 
my advice, and wrought on,—dug a wide pit in the Liassic 
shales, to the depth of more than a hundred feet, and found in 
abundance ammonites and belemnites, with a few well-preserved 
vertebral joints of Ichthyosaurus, and unfortunately here and 
there fragments of cone-bearing trees, with their trunks con- 
verted into jet, but, of course, no coal. The hole was made 
large and deep enough to prove the sepulchre of several hun- 
dred pounds; but I console myself by reflecting that the inev- 
itable expense of the excavating operations was incurred in 
defiance of all that I could say; and I would now urge on my 
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