6 Proceedmgs of the Boyal Physical Society. 



remains in the greywacke slate of the Pentland Hills. These 

 were said to be of two kinds * — fragments of what seem to 

 be minute Trilobites, associated in thin layers, and another 

 fossil, believed by Dr Hibbert to be an Orthoceratite, and of 

 which a figure is given. •[* Two of these precious relics after- 

 wards passed into the possession of the late Hugh Miller. 

 One of the Ortlwceratites, we are told by the latter author, :J: 

 bore on its label the date of discovery, '' 7th April 1834," 

 which would leave an interval of about thirty-nine years 

 after the " Cockles " of Sir James Hall first came to light. 



A short period of inactivity intervened now, and nothing 

 more is heard of fossils from the Silurian rocks of Scotland 

 until 1843. In this year the celebrated engineer, Thomas 

 Stevenson, whilst superintending the erection of a lighthouse 

 on the island of Little Eoss in Kirkcudbright Bay, observed 

 shells in a coarse greywacke there. His paper, giving a 

 description of the geological features of the island, entitled 

 " Eemarks on the Geology of Little Eoss," was read before 

 the Wernerian IsTatural History Society on the 8th April 

 1843. § The shells, he tells us, " appear to belong to the 

 genus Terebratula;" and he further announced the discovery 

 by Mr E. G. Fleming of an Orthoceras in similar rocks on the 

 mainland of the bay, opposite the island. 



From this time forward the gathering of fossils from the 

 southern uplands may be said to have commenced in earnest. 

 In 1844 Professor James Nicol gave a list of organic remains 

 in his " Guide to the Geology of Scotland." |j Those only 

 with which we are at present concerned were derived from 

 the strata of Girvan, seven species in all, comprising one 

 Sponge, three Brachiopods, and one Pteropod. This is, I 

 believe, the first record of fossils from that now well-explored 

 neighbourhood, a district which has since proved the most 

 fossiliferous Silurian locality in Scotland, and one of the 

 most interesting in the whole of the British Islands. 



The name of an observer now appears for the first time in 



* A Sketch of the Geology of Fife caiid the Lotliians, etc., p. 203. 



+ Ibid., p. 203, f. 82. + Ohl Eed Sandstone, 7th edit, 1859, p. 297. 



§ Edinb. N. Phil. Jour., 1843, xxxv., p. 83. 



II 8vo, Edinburgh, 1844, p. 2G1. 



