Reports and Proceedings. 425 
and altogether independent of its intellectual pleasures and economic 
advantages, the science of Geology is worthy of our closest cultivation 
—leading the mind from the harmonies that prevail in the natural 
world up to the higher harmonies that ought to pervade the human 
and social. And now, as the evening is advancing, in the name of 
Mr. Maclaren I must close the business of this session, expressing 
the hope that we may all meet again in November next, refreshed 
by our summer-rambles, and instructed by the further knowledge 
they may have given us of the structure and history of our planet. 
Tur GeroLtocicaL Socinty oF GLAsGow made an Excursion, on 
May 25th, to Dunglass Hill, Spout of Ballagan on the Campsie Fells, 
and Finich Glen in the Strathblane district. The party proceeded 
by Milngavie, and made their first halt at Lochardinnan, near 
the village of Strathblane, to visit the Sandstone Quarries at that 
place. The rock there is an erdinary fine-grained Sandstone, much 
stained in some parts by Oxide of Iron; it is overlain by a thick bed 
of Conglomerate, the bulk of which is composed of rolled quartz 
pebbles of various colours, varying in size from 2 to 3 inches in 
diameter downwards, and the whole loosely cemented in a matrix 
of fine white sand. This Conglomerate is the only one known to 
occur in the Carboniferous beds of the West of Scotland. The 
sandstones with which it is found lie under the limestones and coals 
of the Campsie district to the east. Some specimens of coal-plants 
of the genera Lepidedendron, Calamites, Sigillaria, &c., were ob- 
tained here from the sandstone below the conglomerate. Mr. John 
Young, who had kindly consented to act as guide, briefly pointed 
out the relation of the Sandstone group to the Trap-rock against 
which it abuts ; and although some geologists consider it to be of 
younger age, he did not think such was the case, from the total ab- 
sence of pebbles or fragments of trap in the conglomerate. The Sand- 
stone forms a large tract of the eastern part of the South hill, and 
shows many fine examples of glacial action. 
The party next visited Dunglass Hill, a large boss of trap about 
150 feet in height, standing isolated in the middle of the valley, 
between Campsie and Strathblane. The northern front of the rock 
is bold and precipitous, and passes into a dark fine-grained basalt, 
which presents a splendid columnary structure in various parts of 
the hill, At some points the columns are very regular in form, and 
lie at various angles to the horizon, affording the best example in 
the neighbourhood of Glasgow of this class of igneous rocks. 
On leaving this, the party entered Ballagan Glen, on the north 
side of the valley, opposite Dunglass Hill, and proceeded to the fine 
natural section just below the Spout of Ballagan, where the moun- 
tain-stream which is the source of the river Blane (which flows 
westward into Loch Lomond) leaps from ledge to ledge in its descent 
into the glen. The section here of the so-called Ballagan beds is 
about 150 feet in height, and consists of no fewer than 280 alter- 
nations of thin-bedded nodular limestones (from 1 to 8 inches in 
thickness), marly shales, and flaggy sandstones of a grey or red 
