1006 REPORT—1885. 
yaried collection of organic remains from the beds of Sutherland ; and the results 
of the examination and discussion of these fossils will be awaited by all geologists 
with the greatest interest. 
Whether, as in case of Scandinavia, other fossiliferous deposits of Silurian age 
will be found to be represented in a highly metamorphosed condition in our Scot- 
tish Highlands, remains to be discovered. There is such a perfect parallelism 
between the several members of the Silurian in Scania and in the Scottish Border- 
land, so well shown by the researches of Linnarson and Lapworth, that, as Nicol 
always anticipated, we may not improbably find a portion of fhe rocks of the 
Highlands to be altered forms of those of the Borderland. 
Since the last meeting of the British Association in the Highlands, much pro- 
gress has been made in the study of that pre-eminently British formation—the Old 
Red Sandstone. Dr. Archibald Geikie has thrown much new light, by his valuable 
researches, on the relations of the several members of the vast series of deposits 
which go by that name; while Dr. Traquair, bringing to bear on the subject great 
anatomical knowledge, has re-examined the collections of fossil-fish made by that 
indefatigable explorer, Hugh Miller. The Old Red Sandstone is the only great 
system of strata which we possess, while it is either wholly absent, or very imper- 
fectly represented, in Scandinavia. 
In the year 1876, I was able to announce that a vestige—a small but highly 
interesting vestige—of the great Carboniferous system exists within the limits 
of the Scottish Highlands. Well do I recall the deep, the ineffaceable impression 
made upon my mind when, standing at the Innimore of Ardtornish, I beheld for 
the first time this relic of a great formation, preserved by such a wonderful series 
of accidents, What the inscribed stone of Rosetta or the papyri of Herculaneum are 
to the archeologist, this little patch of sandstone is to the geologist. Overwhelmed 
by successive lava-streams that were piled upon one another to the depth of many 
hundreds of feet, and then carried down by a fault which buried it at least two 
thousand feet in the bowels of the earth, this fragment has remained while every 
other trace of the formation has been swept from the Highlands by the besom of 
denudation. 
Highly interesting and important in these northern areas are the Mesozoic 
deposits, which in places attain a vertical thickness of several miles, and which 
must have originally covered enormous tracts of country. Now, judged by that 
very fallacious test, the space which they cover upon our geological maps, they 
appear in the Scottish Highlands to be absolutely insignificant. 
The correspondence in characters between the several Secondary formations on 
the two sides of the North Sea is of the most striking kind. I have had the good 
fortune to study the Secondary rocks of Scania under the guidance and with the 
assistance of Professor Lundgren, of the University of Lund, who has made so 
many important discoveries in connection with them. While doing so, I have 
again and again felt almost constrained to pause and rub my eyes, to convince 
myself that I was not back again in Scotland—so complete is the correspondence 
between the mineral characters, the fossils, and the geognostic relations of these 
strata in the two areas. 
The Triassic rocks of Scandinavia, consisting of variegated sandstones and con- 
clomerates, containing much calcareous material, are absolutely undistinguishable 
from those of the Western Highlands. In both countries the thickness of the 
deposits of this age varies within very short distances, their development being 
local and inconstant. The formation which in places exceeds a thousand feet in 
thickness, at other points is reduced to an insignificant band of conglomerate. On 
the eastern flank of our Highlands, yellow sandstones belonging to this formation 
have yielded to Mr. Duff, Dr. Gordon, Mr. Grant, and others that interesting series 
of reptilian remains which, in the hands of Professor Huxley, have been made to 
throw such important light on the forms of life which existed at that remote geo- 
logical period. In the very similar deposits which occur in Scandinavia, however, 
reptilian remains have not as yet been obtained. The abundance and variety in 
form and size of the footprints which occur in our Scottish rocks of this age indicate 
the richness of the vertebrate fauna which must have existed at that distant epoch. 
