GEOLOGY. 25 



The same series of sandstones as those now described extend 

 into Fifcshire, skirting the south bank of the Tay, and reposing 

 on the northern slope of the Ochil Hills from Ferry-Port-on- 

 Craig to Newburgh. The grey bands are the lowest, and cor- 

 respond in geological age and horizon with the cephalaspis and 

 pterogotus beds of Balruddery and Carmylie, although they rise 

 on Norman's Law to an elevation of nearly eight hundred 

 feet. No animal remains have as yet been detected in the 

 grey beds of Fifeshire, but the Parha decipiens is everywhere 

 abundant. This rock stretches over the parish of Balmerino 

 into the valleys of Kilmany, rising on the ridges to the south, 

 and dipping under the red deposits which extend into Dura 

 Den on an anticlinal axis (ik). 



The red-coloured series consists "of three distinct varieties, 

 the conglomerate, the fine-grained, and the yellow spotted, 

 which, however, are regularly associated, sometimes separated 

 from each other by bands of clay and marl, and sometimes 

 passing insensibly into one another without any perceptible line 

 of demarcation between them. This division of our lithology, 

 as marked on the line of section, extends from the Grampians 

 to the opening of Dura Den at the church of Dairsie. In 

 Strathmore, to the north of the Sidlaws, the outcrop of the 

 series may be observed in several places, as from Meigle to 

 Blairgowrie, and along the channel of the Tay from the Bridge 

 of Isla to Stanley. 



The conglomerate is the lowest of the series, lying incon- 

 formably on the grey bands -beneath, and consists, like the older 

 and coarser variety, of portions of the primary rocks, granite, 

 gneiss, schist, quartz, porphyry, and hornblende. They are in 

 the form of rounded nodules, or sometimes of blunt angular 

 fragments, varying from an inch to six inches in diameter. 

 The interstices between the nodular masses are composed of 

 smaller portions of similar materials, and possess a considerable 

 degree of cohesion. The compact variety rests conformably 

 above the conglomerate, and so intimately connected are they, 



