568 Revieivs — Geological Society of Glasgow, 



2. " On the Occurrence of Saccamnina Carteri, Brady, in the Lanark- 

 shire Coal-field." This Carboniferous foraminifera, previously found 

 in the Limestones of the N. of England and E. of Scotland, is interest- 

 ing as being closely allied to a living species, S. sphoerica, which ap- 

 pears to be common at great depths in the Atlantic. 3. In conjunction 

 with Mr. J. Armstrong, a paper, "On the Fossils of the Carboniferous 

 Strata of the West of Scotland." ^ This is the first of a series of 

 papers (No. 1, Eobroystone), which the authors intend to prepare, of 

 the fossils found in each particular group of strata in the various 

 localities where they occur, so as to compare them, and thus arrive 

 at " a correct notion of the alternate change of condition under 

 which the flora and fauna of the Carboniferous period existed." 



More than 130 species are enumerated, chiefly Invertebrata, some 

 of them new, and mostly obtained from a shale-bed associated with 

 the Eobroystone or Upper Limestone series. The Carboniferous 

 shales of the West of Scotland appear to be very fossiliferous, which 

 may be due to the abundance of life during their deposition, or to 

 the greater facility with which the fossils weather out than in the 

 associated harder limestones. We have been shown by Mr. Robert 

 Craig, of Langside, a bed of shale about three feet thick, in his 

 quarry, belonging to the Lower Limestone series, in which he has 

 found 50 per cent, of the known fossils of the Beith district of 

 Ayrshire. 



In the last paper "On the Glaciation of the West of Scotland," Mr. 

 D. Bell shows that the diverging strise and trains of boulders in the 

 neighbourhood of the Firth of Clyde must have been produced by 

 a great sheet of land-ice, extending from the higher grounds, and 

 entirely filling up the present estuary of the Clyde ; while the 

 branching Lochs, as Holy Loch, Loch Long, and Gare Loch, which 

 form so striking a feature of the west coast, are simply old glacier 

 channels, down which in various directions this great outflow of ice 

 found its way from the frozen and snow-clad interior of the country ; 

 and he cites as evidence the numerous blocks of schistose, gneissose, 

 and granitic rocks found along the eastern shore and to some height 

 on the hill- sides above, in the vicinity of Greenock and Gourock, 

 directly opposite the opening of the ' Lochs ' above referred to. 



We have noticed, in a recent visit to Gourock, the number of very 

 large and small boulders of the rocks above mentioned along shore 

 (as alluded to by Mr. Bell), from Kempoch Point to below the Cloch 

 Light House, in a district consisting either of Old Eed or Lower 

 Carboniferous Sandstones and conglomerates, with intercalated and 

 intrusive porphyry and trap rocks, — a district well worthy of careful 

 examination for its interesting geological structure. Mr. Bell further 

 states, that while the general glaciation of the Clyde valley is from 

 W. to E. (or N.W. to S.E.), there have lately been observed instances 

 of cross-striation, especially at Fossil, w^here the N.W. striae were 

 considered to be the older, and the N.E. the newer of the two sets. 

 This cross-striation is one of considerable interest to students of this 

 department of geology. J. M. 



' See the excellent general catalogue, by the same authors. Trans. Geol. Soc. of 

 Glasgow, vol. iii. Supplement. 1871. 



