Vice-President’s Address. 207 
the Coal-Measures. Even in the shales associated with the 
coal seams, good specimens of fossil plants are very rare. 
CALCIFEROUS SANDSTONE SERIES.! 
The term “ Calciferous Sandstone” was first proposed by 
the late Mr Charles Maclaren in 1839 for this series,? on 
account of the impure limestones and calcareous sandstones 
which occur in it. 
The Calciferous Sandstones, or “ Cement Stone” Series, 
contain many valuable beds of bituminous shale, which are 
largely used in oil-making; it also contains estuarine lime- 
stone, the most important and best-known bed of which is 
the Burdiehouse Limestone. There are also some coal 
seams, usually very thin, but one of them, the Houston 
Seam, attains a thickness of 6 feet. 
What was at one time regarded as a Lower or Red Sand- 
stone group of this series, is now proved to be a portion of 
the Upper Old Red Sandstone as already mentioned. 
The fossils got from the oil shale, which is a very fine- 
grained bituminous black rock, are usually in an excellent 
state of preservation. I have never seen any fossils surpass in 
beauty of preservation some which I possess from these beds. 
Owing to the shales being now broken up for the retorts by 
machinery, specimens from the oil shales are much more 
difficult to obtain. Formerly, when the shale was prepared 
for the retorts by manual labour, any good specimens met 
with were generally laid aside by the men engaged in 
splitting it up, and could easily be obtained from them. 
1] may here again repeat that the volcanic rocks occurring among the 
Carboniferous rocks of Scotland are entirely omitted from these descriptions, 
as they do not affect the point in view. 
* A Sketch of the Geology of Fife and the Lothians, Edin., 1839, p. 70. 
