24. Gethie— Old Volcanic Action at Burntisland. 
distance. Along the upper surface of the bed the vesicular and 
scoriaceous character of a lava-flow is well shewn, while the 
texture throughout is exceedingly irregular, varying from a 
loose slag to a firm compact lava. The basalt (12) must at one 
time have been a rough, porous slaggy lava. Even now the 
disappearance of the mineral matter which subsequently filled 
up the cavities has gone far to restore the original aspect of the 
mass. No one who looks at these two beds can doubt that 
they must have been poured out, probably over the bottom 
of a shallow sheet of water, as streams of molten rock. Be- 
tween the eruption, however, of the greenstone and that of 
the basalt, it is evident that a considerable interval must have 
elapsed, in order to admit of the gradual deposition of the ten 
intervening groups of strata, which have a united thickness of 
from ten to fifteen feet. This interval was chiefly passed in the 
transport and deposition of fine muddy sediment over the green- 
stone. Yet it was marked too by the growth of a mass of 
peaty vegetation (now the coal-seam, No. 4) which must have 
flourished on the spot, for its rootlets can be seen branching out 
into the clay below. It would appear either that the water 
had been so shallow that the fifteen feet of greenstone nearly 
sufficed to reach its surface, or that some upheaving movement, 
connected with the volcanic phenomena of the district, had at 
this place raised the bottom to the level of the upper surface of 
the water. In either case the water was almost dispossessed, 
for the thick peaty accumulation which supplanted it, and 
which is now represented by the coal-layer, in all likelihood 
had at least its larger plants waving green in the air. Never- 
theless a slow subsidence was the predominant movement 
during these ages. Hence after a time the peat-bed, carried 
beneath the water, was covered with new muddy deposits 
mingled with small crustacean valves and drifted fragments of 
plants. It is in the clay lying immediately over the coal that 
the intident occurs which is the occasion of this paper. 
Tn the summer of 1862, when making a detailed investigation 
ae of the Burntisland district 
for the Geological Survey, 
I found the following sec- 
tion near the top of the 
west end of the King’s 
Craig. The lowest bed (3) 
Section of King’s Craig, showing the position of the is the same brown i shaly 
Volcanic Stone in the ancient mud-bed. fireclay marked 3 in the 
table; No. 4 is the coal-seam; No. 5 the green crumbling 
fireclay by which the coal is overlain. It will be noticed 
