330 Reviews — Geology of Beauty and Inverness. 



EEVIEWS. 



I. — Geological Survey of Scotland. 



The Geology of the Country round Beauly and Inverness. Bv 

 J. Horne, LL.D., F.R.S., and L. W. Hinxman, B.A., F.R.S.E."; 

 with contributions by B. N. Peach, LL.D., F.R.S., and E. H. 

 Cunningham Craig, B.A. Memoirs of the Geological Survey, 

 Scotland. Explanation of Sheet 83. H.M. Stationery Office, 

 1914. Price 2s. 



TMHIS memoir has been issued in advance of the corresponding 

 J_ colour-printed map, the printing of which is delayed owing to 

 pressure of work at the Ordnance Survey Office, occasioned by the 

 European War. It is descriptive of the district from Inverness 

 north to Strathpeffer, including Beauly and a part of the Black Isle, 

 extending almost to Munlochy. Two main types of rock occur in 

 this country : the Highland schists and metamorphic rocks form 

 most of the western half of the Sheet, while the conglomerates and 

 sandstones of the Orcadian or Middle Old Red Sandstone underlie the 

 agricultural and more densely populated country near the coast. 



The metamorphic rocks of the interior mountainous tract are not 

 essentially different from those that occur in the Sheet to the west (82), 

 of which a description was published in 1913. The Moine Gneisses 

 of this part of Scotland are an old sedimentary group now represented 

 by mica schists and quartzose biotite-granulites. With little variation 

 they extend over wide areas ; graphite schists and limestones are 

 comparatively rare in this series, but at Rebeg, about 8 miles 

 west-south-west of Inverness, a limestone occurs which is ascribed 

 by Dr. Horne to the Moine rocks. 



Another group of metamorphic rocks more varied in composition 

 and character, as it included many types of orthogneiss and 

 paragneiss, is represented by small outcrops in Glen Orrin, Glen 

 Urquhart, and at Loch Luichart. These have attracted some attention, 

 as among them occur kyanite-gneiss and white marble, unusual types 

 of rock in eastern InVerness-shire. Glen Urquhart is known to 

 mineralogists as a locality for interesting minerals. In the memoir 

 they are assigned to the Lewisian Gneiss, but the evidence on which 

 this conclusion is founded is not stated, as it was obtained actually in 

 the district further west and has been given in the Memoirs on 

 Glenelg and Central Boss. The Moine Gneisses are believed to rest 

 un conformably on an irregular, highly eroded surface of the Lewisian 

 Gneiss, but the interpretation of the junctions is rendered very 

 obscure owing to complicated folding and metamorphism. 



The Old lied Sandstone of the eastern part of the Sheet is very 

 thick and at the same time very poor in organic remains. Dr. Peach 

 estimates that on the - north side of the Black Isle syncline there are 

 7,000 feet of conglomerates, sandstones, and shales. Two fish-beds 

 with limestone nodules, like those found at Cromarty by Hugh 

 Miller, occur in the Killen Burn, about 3 miles west of Avoch, 

 and have yielded the Orcadian fishes Coccosieus decipiens, Ag., 

 Osteolepis macrolepidotus, Ag., and Gyroptychius microlepidotus, Ag., 



