432 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



' I did not observe any of the lignites and fossil 

 woods in situ in the breccia; but as all the other 

 pebbles of the beach seem to be derived from that 

 breccia, I conclude that they also do. But it strikes me 

 that both the woods and the corals must have been 

 already fossilized when they were pasted up in the 

 breccia. One or two specimens of the latter I found 

 firmly embedded amongst the other fragments.' 



HUGH MILLER'S KEPLY. 



' I regret that I had not the good fortune of meeting 

 your Grace this autumn at Helmsdale, as for the last 

 eight or ten years I have been in the habit of spending a 

 day in that neighbourhood every season, and could wish 

 to have some of my findings regarding the rocks which 

 form its framework tested by an eye so discerning as 

 that of your Grace. The locality, though of much geo- 

 logical interest, is one that opens its stores but slowly. 

 I visited it several seasons in succession ere I felt satisfied 

 that I really understood it ; and I still feel a desire to 

 go back upon my conclusions respecting it, and have 

 them put to the question. 



' The conglomerate which at first sight seems so 

 puzzling, consists of numerous beds which decidedly 

 alternate with beds of argillaceous * strata, Liassic in their 

 character, but unequivocally, as your Grace suggests, of 

 the age of the Lower Oolite. The shale finely and 

 regularly laminated, and blackened by carboniferous 

 matter and abounding in fossils, must have been slowly 

 deposited on an undisturbed sea bottom, whereas the 

 alternating beds of conglomerate, composed almost 



* The word in Miller's manuscript is ' arenaceous,' but, on the 

 suggestion of Mr Carruthers of the British Museum, who has kindly 

 looked over the scientific chapters, I substitute ' argillaceous' as alone 

 compatible with the argument. 



