TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 1001 
which some of the earliest of his great paleontological discoveries were achieved. 
Within the last few days the remains of another reptile, clearly referable to the 
Dieynodontia has heen found ; so that no less than four orders of reptiles are now 
known to be represented in the formation. 
The manner in which the yellow sandstones, which have yielded these reptilian 
remains, are at many different points found associated with beds containing Holop- 
tychius and other Old Red Sandstone fish, appeared to many geologists altogether 
inexplicable on any other hypothesis than that the strata are all of the same 
geological age. 
In spite, however, of these appearances, and the interesting observations of Dr. 
Gordon and Dr. Joass on the rocks of the Tarbet peninsula, which seemed to 
support the hypothesis just referred to, I am able to announce that proof of the 
most clear and convincing character now exists of the distinction between the 
lish-bearing ‘Old Red’ and the reptiliferous ‘New Red’ of the neighbourhood 
of Elgin. In the year 1873 I showed that rocks, identical in character with 
the reptiliferous sandstone of Elgin, and the overlying calcareous and cherty 
rock of Stotfield, exist on the northern side of the Moray Firth, in the county of 
Sutherland, and that they there conformably underlie Rhetic and Liassic strata. 
Very recently Dr. Gordon has added a crowning discovery to his long list of 
previous ones, by detecting in the same quarry the rocks containing the reptilian 
and fish remains respectively. I find, however, that while the two series of beds 
present well-marked differences in their mineral characters, the yellow sandstones 
with fish remains clearly overlie the undoubted Upper Old Red, and are separated 
from it by a well-marked bed of conglomerate. In other quarries in the district, 
the manner in which these two series of strata have been thrown side by side by 
the action of great faults is very clearly exhibited. I hope that full details of the 
evidence on this interesting subject will be laid before you during the present meeting. 
The facts relied upon by the Paleontologist and the Stratigraphist re- 
spectively are thus found to be no longer opposed to one another. By a com- 
plicated series of parallel faults, the Devonian and Triassic sandstones, which 
happen to have a general resemblance in their mineral characters, are found again 
and again thrown side by side with one another in the Elgin district, so that the 
error into which geologists fell before the discovery of the distinctive fossils of the 
two sets of rocks, was a yery pardonable one. 
A retrospect of these two controversies, now so happily laid at rest, is not, I 
think, without its uses for the student of Highland geology, for it may serve to 
furnish him with some useful warnings which are in great danger of being over- 
looked at the present time. 
The discovery of a few fossil remains in strata where they were previously 
unknown, has completely revolutionized our ideas concerning the age of rock- 
masses of enormous extent and thickness, Resemblances in mineral character have 
been proved not only to have been, at their best, very unsafe guides indeed, but to 
have actually betrayed those who trusted in them into the most serious errors. 
But for the discoveries of Charles Peach on the one hand, and of Patrick Duff and 
Dr. Gordon on the other, geologists would probably still continue to class the sand- 
stones of Torridon and Elgin respectively with the ‘Old Red.’ 
But perhaps the consideration of greatest importance which is impressed upon 
us by this retrospect is, that in these Highland districts we must be always pre- 
pared to meet with rock-masses of very different geological ages, thrown into 
puzzling juxtaposition by the gigantic movements to which this part of the earth’s 
crust has been subjected. He who enters on the study of Highland geology with- 
out being prepared to encounter at every step complicated foldings, vast dislocations, 
and stupendous inversions of the strata, can scarcely fail to be betrayed into the 
most disastrous and fatal errors. 
The early history of Scotland is inextricably interwoven with that of Scan- 
dinavia. This proposition, true as it is of the insignificant periods of which 
human history takes cognizance, applies with even greater force to the vast epochs 
that fall within the ken of the geologist. To us the separation of Scotland and 
