aa ek 
On the Strata of the Environs of Edinburgh. AZ 
fairian Theorists, from Dogmas more wild and fanciful, and from 
equally or more superficial Examinations, had inferred and main- 
tained, as to the King’s Park mass, being a heap of Lava, ejected, 
in comparatively modern times, with regard to the ages of the 
Strata, from the adjacent crater of an extinct Volcano, which had 
broken up through those Strata! 
And [ doubt not but Mr. Forster and Mr. Wineh, and many 
others of your Readers will be pleased to hear, that the appli- 
cation of those simple and almost self-evident principles, on which 
intelligent and practical Colliers and Miners are entirely agreed, 
throughout Britain, show incontestibly, that these Basaltic Strata, 
whose edges in Arthur’s Seat Hill in the King’s Park (close on the 
east side of Edinburgh) are now seen standing, locally, so much 
higher than elsewhere in the immediate vicinity, are the very same 
Strata, which form the south-eastern slope and highest parts, of 
the Pentland Range of Hills; and that these same Basaltic strata, 
regularly under-lie the great Coal Trough, situated to the south- 
east, east and north-east, presenting their edges all round, from 
underneath the same, not only in Edinburghshire, but across 
the Firth of Forth into Fifeshire: the principal Trough, making 
a turn therein, first NW then W, and then SW, through Clack- 
mananshire, and again across. the Forth, into. Linlithgow and 
Stirling Counties, and thence towards Glasgow; which latter 
Coal-fields, heretofore thought by many Persons, to be separate 
and distinct ones ; now, not only appear to join, by twice cross~ 
ing the Forth, but the same Basaltic strata, everywhere appear 
rising from under the edges, of this complicated system of very 
crooked and branching Troughs* in the strata, in which these 
Coal-fields lie ; which principal Trough, sends off other branch 
scriptions were taken; in order, to examine minutely into, and either ac- 
quiesce in, or confute and correct, the representations, therein made, by 
Mr. F.: or, whether the long-promised, and now, as it is said, the forth- 
coming, “ lllustrations” of Mr. Playfair, and “Geognosy” of Mr, Jameson, 
will, in silence pass over these recent Observations; which seem, so strongly 
to contradict each of the Theories, which, almost every very modern Writer, 
has, untruly, and very improperly, said to be those, in favour of one of 
which, every Geologist is now agreed! !. By which unworthy artifice, so 
often and unblushingly played off, of late, the task of defending, each their 
own set of whimsical Doginas, against the facts of Nature, and the published 
Observations of several Writers, is lessened, into that of confuting, another 
and equally or nearly as absurd a set of Dogmas, which has thus, by them- 
selves, mutually, been covjured up into importance, for the mere purpose 
of obtaining an easy victory over it! each,—in the opinions of their own 
partizans. 
_* The term Basin, from its almost invariable application to something 
circular, or near to it, is very inapplicable to these local fields of particular 
Strata, and should cease to be used by Geologists, who aim at perspicuity 
and accuracy. 
Troughs, 
