332 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



bulky nodules charged with fragments of Coccosteus, belong- 

 ing chiefly to two species, Coccosteus decipiens and Coccos- 

 teus cuspidatus. All the specimens bore conclusive evidence 

 regarding the geologic place and character of the beds in 

 which they occur ; and in one of the number, a specimen of 

 Coccosteus decipiens, sufficiently fine to be transferred to my 

 knapsack, and which now occupies its corner in my little col- 

 lection, the head exhibits all its plates in their proper order, 

 and the large dorsal plate, though dissociated from the nail- 

 like attachment of the nape, presents its characteristic breadth 

 entire. It was the plates of this species, first found in the 

 flagstones of Caithness, which were taken for those of a fresh- 

 water tortoise ; and hence apparently its specific name, deci- 

 piens ; it is the deceiving Coccosteus. I disinterred, in the 

 course of my explorations, as many nodules as lay within 

 reach, now and then longing for a pick-axe, and a companion 

 robust and persevering enough to employ it with effect ; and 

 after seeing all that was to be seen in the "bed of the stream 

 and the precipices, I retraced my steps up the dell to the high- 

 way. And then, striking off across the moor to the north, 

 ascending in the system as I climbed the eminence, which 

 forms here the central ridge of the old Maolbuie Common, 

 I spent some little time in a quarry of pale red sandstone, 

 known, from the moory height on which it has been opened, 

 as the quarry of the Maolbuie. But here, as elsewhere, the 

 folds of that upper division of the Lower Old Ked in which 

 it has been excavated contain nothing organic. Why this 

 should be so universally the case, for in Caithness, Orkney, 

 Cromarty, and Ross, wherever, in short, this member of the 

 system is unequivocally developed, it is invariably barren of 

 remains, cannot, I suspect, be very satisfactorily explained. 

 Fossils occur both over and under it, in rocks that seem as 

 little favourable to their preservation ; but during that inter- 

 vening period which its blank strata represent, at least the 



