58 Proceedings of the Boyal Physical Society. 



the county of Edinburgh its meanderings are very beautiful 

 and romantic, particularly where it passes through the gTounds 

 of Arniston, Dalhousie, ^ewbattle, and Dalkeith. It skirts 

 and intersects the chief coal measures of the county, and its 

 bed — at least in the locality I am about to indicate — is rich in 

 fossiliferous deposits of the Lower Carboniferous formation, 

 and which crop up in many places very near the surface. The 

 portion of the river to which I recently directed my attention, 

 and which has led to this notice, extends only a short way, 

 barely half a mile, viz., between Newbattle and Lothian 

 bridges, and which being within the enclosed grounds of 

 I^ewbattle Abbey is not accessible, without permission, to the 

 public. 



Except where it cuts through walls of red sandstone, the 

 bed of the river is here composed of a micaceous sandstone of 

 various degrees of grain (and which probably alternates with 

 fire-clay), lying horizontally and being generally of a more or 

 less schistose character. In this sandstone the ferns after 

 enumerated are mostly found and in sitio. Some of the other 

 plants are not so, but are found in carbonaceous rolled masses, 

 rectangular or approaching that shape, and of a few inches in 

 thickness. Many of these have no doubt been carried down 

 from a higher portion of the fluvial bed. 



I was led to investigate this jDart of the river bed from 

 information kindly given to me by Mr Blackie, the intelligent 

 Clerk of Works on the ]N"ewbattle Estate, who mentioned to 

 me that some time ago while making a cutting for a mill lade 

 near the bank of the river at Newbattle Bridge, the work- 

 men, at about five or six feet from the surface, came upon 

 quantities of sandstone (barrow loads in fact) covered, or 

 rather, I should say, intermixed, with fine impressions of 

 ferns of various kinds, but which stones had now aU got 

 scattered, except one large slab placed in a niche of the 

 screen wall of Newbattle Abbey. An inspection of this 

 slab led me greatly to regret that I had not been 

 present at the scattering of such a splendid find of fossil 

 treasure. 



Lord Lothian, on being made aware of the interest I took 

 in geological research, kindly offered me, through Mr Blackie, 



