74, REPORT—1858. 
On the Fossil Fishes and Yellow Sandstone. 
By the Rev. Dr. AnpERsoN, Newburgh. 
Referring to his paper in the Report of the British Association of 1850, the author 
remarked that much discussion had since occurred as to the true position and forma- 
tion of the Yellow Sandstone of Dura Den, as well as of other localities. It was termed 
the Yellow Sandstone, not simply because of the colour generally, but because of its 
striking contrast with the other members of the Old Red Sandstone series*. In Ire- 
land it seems to be regarded by Sir Richard Griffith, in his valuable communication 
to the Section last year at Dublin, as holding a doubtful position, whether relatively 
to the Old Red or to the Carboniferous system. Mr. Jukes declared, on the same 
occasion, his conviction that “ the whole fish-beds of Scotland, and the similar rocks 
in Glamorganshire and South Wales, might belong to the Carboniferous system.” 
This confusion arose, the author was persuaded, from the confusion in the rocks 
themselves in these localities, where, through means of the intrusive traps, they are 
all upheaved and disturbed in their positions and relations to each other. But in 
Dura Den the whole series are in the closest juxtaposition, and to be read off with 
the ease of letter-press from sectional descriptions. He had further to add, upon the 
question of age and position, that no Pterichthys nor Pamphractus had been found in 
any of the rocks immediately above the yellow deposit of Dura Den, and he chal- 
lenged the detection of one of either genus from any of the strata yielding Cephalaspis 
or the grey sandstone beds with Pterygotus beneath, in Forfarshire, Perthshire, or 
Caithness. Diplopteri weve likewise abundant in this deposit. Sir Roderick Murchison 
and Lord Kinnaird had accompanied him, a few days ago, to Dura Den, and he was now 
fortified in his conclusion by the high authority of Sir Roderick, who at this Sectional 
Meeting has declared “ that there could be no doubt whatever that the yellow sand- 
stones of Fifeshire pertain truly to the Old Red group, are entirely subjacent to the 
lowest carboniferous sandstones, and are of the same age as the upper yellow sand- 
stones of Elgin.” 
“The sectional drawings on the wall exhibit in the closest relation the wonders of 
the two geologic ages, the Carboniferous and the Old Red. A step carries you from 
the one series of rocks to the other. A vast, universal, inconceivable change passes 
over the surface of the globe; the seas in greater varieties and in multiplied forms of 
marine life; the land all over abounding in trees and fern-forms of the amplest 
dimensions; and leaping across the stream, in this narrow dell, you pass the shadowy 
bourn which separates two of the oldest and most remarkable epochs in the world’s 
history. The mighty operation is marked on a small scale, though recorded in the 
most legible characters; a slight depression in the dip of the strata on the one side of 
the rill, a few black lines interspersed among the stripes of white rock on the other 
side; and this is the simple lithograph by which Nature tells of energies whose pro- 
ducts are mountains and valleys, new teeming lands, seas swarming with the moving 
thing that hath life, and mineral treasures enclosed for man’s use and comfort which 
Time only can exhaust +!” 
Passing from this point, now, he thought, completely established, the author of the 
paper proceeded to a description of the fossils so abundant in the deposit, amounting 
to four genera and seven or eight distinct species of fishes and crustacea. The beau- 
tiful drawing of the large specimen before them was that of a [oloptychius nobilis- 
simus, excavated last week from its stony bed of ages, and adding a new member to 
the Dura Den family of the genus, and thus placing it higher in the series than the 
rocks of Glashbennie, or those of Cromartie and other localities in the north. He 
held in his hand a specimen of the two bones of the head termed the glosso-hyal 
plates that supported the lower jaw, and which resembled very much the plates in 
the existing Sudis gigas of the American rivers. The huge Megalichthys of our 
Scottish coal-fields had three glosso-hyal supporters, as if Nature in her arrangements 
had made size a condition of organic structure. Upon the whole, he concluded, we 
have in Dura Den a classic field for geologists of the deepest interest ; much has 
been obtained, much remains to be detected in future researches, For the general 
* Course of Creation, by Dr. Anderson, p. 57. Longman, Brown and Co., London, 
+ The author’s ‘ Geology of Scotland.’ Pictorial History. Virtue and Co., London, 
