EXCURSION VI. 119 



limestone with imbedded pebbles, the same as those in 

 the conglomerate, forming a calcareous conglomerate. 

 This bed is followed by gray sandstone and concretionary 

 limestone, or cornstoue, consisting of red nodules, im- 

 bedded in shale. Other alternations of limestone and 

 sandstone follow, there being in all five or six beds 

 of limestone, the two lowest of which are seen rising up 

 the hill on the dip, S.E., over the conglomerate. The 

 whole series is to be regarded as perhaps rather the bottom 

 beds of the carboniferous series than the top beds of the 

 old red sandstone. There succeed these various beds of 

 sandstone and shale, till we reach an enormous vein or 

 dike of trap, which occupies the shore for more than 300 

 yards. In this are found basalt, greenstone, amygdaloid, 

 and concretionary trap, exfoliating in concentric coats; and 

 it is traversed by numerous veins of calc spar, steatite, 

 and quartz. The next beds seen are a red and a gray 

 limestone ; there is then a whin dike, south of which, 

 from the gate upon the road to the limestone quarry, the 

 shore is occupied by sandstone. The strata of limestone 

 are seen in the little harbour, and extend up the hill, rising 

 towards the north and dipping S.K at 36. The rock 

 is of a bluish-gray colour, about twenty feet thick, and 

 consists of twenty-two beds of limestone, interstratified 

 with the same number of beds of red shale, the thickest 

 stratum seldom reaching one foot. The workings are 

 inclined adits descending in the line of dip. Over the 

 limestone are shales with hematitic iron ore. Several dikes 

 traverse the limestone, and alter its structure; fossils abound, 

 but are procured with difficulty. It has been remarked, 

 as indicating the tranquil nature of the deposit, that the 

 large producti uniformly rest with the convex side of the 

 valve downwards. In the sandstone upon the shore in 

 front of the village several common species of coal plants 

 are found. In the little bay under the hotel, and a little 

 south of Come, near the fall on Lochrim burn and the 



