Presidpnfinl Address to Geological Section. 467 



By means of the fossil plants Mr. Kidston correlates the Coal-measures 

 of Scotland underlying the red sandstones with the lower division of the 

 Coal-measm-es of England, and the overlying red sandstones of Fife with 

 the middle division of the English Coal-measures. 



It is remarkable that the evidence supplied by the fossil fishes has led 

 Dr. Traquair independently to a similar conclusion. He holds that fossil 

 ichthyology proves the existence of only two great life-zones in the 

 Carboniferous rocks of Central Scotland — an upper and a lower — the 

 boundary-line between the two being drawn at the base of the Millstone 

 Grit. The Scottish Carboniferous rocks, being mostly estuarine, give au 

 opportunity of comparing the estuarine fishes of both divisions. He 

 finds the Coal-measure fishes of Scotland to be the same as those in the 

 English Coal-measures, while those occurring below the Millstone Grit in 

 Scotland are mostly different in species, and often, too, in genera, from the 

 forms above that horizon. 



Of special interest, as bearing on the former extension of this system in 

 Scotland, is the discovery made by Professor Judd ' in 1877 of a patch 

 of Carboniferous sandstones and shales, with well-preserved plant remains 

 in Morven. Another small outlier of this formation has recently been 

 found in the Pass of Brander by the Geological Survey.* 



The i-eptiles from the Elgin sandstones, recently described by Mr. E. T. 

 Newton,' add fresh interest to the study of these rocks. The structural 

 relations of these sandstones have been fully treated by Professor Judd in 

 his great paper on the Secondary Rocks on the East of Scotland,* and 

 again in his presidential address to this Section at Aberdeen,* who con- 

 firmed Huxley's well-known correlation of these beds with the Trias. The 

 Dicynodout skull, identified by Professor Judd and Dr. Traquair at the 

 Aberdeen meeting of the British Association in 1885, and other remains 

 found in the reptilian sandstones in Cutties Hillock Quarry, where they 

 rest on Upper Old Red Sandstone with Holoptychius, have been described 

 by Mr. Newton. He confii'med their affinity with Dicynodonts, though 

 they were referred to the genera Oordonia and Qeikia. But the most 

 remarkable specimen was the skull named by Mr. Newton Elginia mirahilis. 

 This extraordinary creature, with a pair of horns projecting like those of 

 a short-horned ox, and with smaller spines and bosses, numbering thirty- 

 nine, is related to the great Pareiasaurus from the Karoo beds of South 

 Africa. Two other reptiles are described by Mr. Newton from this quarry, 

 namely, a small crocodile-like animal, ErpetosucMis Granti, apparently 

 nearly allied to Stagonolepis, and Ornithosuchus Woodiuardi, which is 

 probably a small Dinosaurian. 



Mr. Newton has raised an interesting point in connection with his 

 researches. He calls attention to the fact that the reptilian remains from 

 the Cutties Hillock Quarry differ from those found at other localities in 

 the Elgin district. For example, the Lossiemouth sandstones have 

 yielded Stagonolepis, Hjjperodapedon, and Telerpeton ; and the Cutties 

 Hillock sandstones, the Dicynodonts {Gordonia and Geikia), the horned 

 reptile {Elginia), the small crocodile - like Erpetotuclms, and the little 

 Dinosaurian OrnithosucJius. Does this distribution indicate different 

 stratigraphical horizons ? is virtually the point raised by Mr. Newton. 

 In connection with this inquiry he cites the evidence obtained in other 

 countries. Thus, in the Gondwana beds of India, the series of reptiles 

 similar to those of Elgin occur at different localities and on different 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxxiv, p. 685. 



- Summary of Progress Geol. Surv. 1898, p. 129. 



3 Phil. Trans., vol. clxxxiv (1893), p. 431 ; ibid., vol. clxxxv (1894), p. 573. 



* Quart Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxix, p. 98. 



* Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1885, p. 994. 



