Glasgow Geological Society. 137 



Lothians. They belong, as a whole, to the lower division of the 

 Carboniferous formation. The evidenco by which their position can 

 now be ascertained consists of masses of stratified tuff, frequently 

 associated with contemporaneous outflows of melaphyre. The 

 number of the vents in some parts of the country must have been 

 very great. During the deposition of the Lower Carboniferous rocks 

 the area of Linlithgowshire and great part of Fife and East Lothian 

 was dotted over with little volcanoes, each throwing up its cone of 

 ash, or here and there emitting a short current of lava. In some 

 places the vents were so closely placed together that their ejections 

 formed in the end one long volcanic bank, such as the Garlton Hills, 

 and the range of heights between Bathgate and Linlithgow. The 

 vents were singularly local in their development. Thus, while they 

 continued in activity throughout Linlithgowshire and Fife, as well 

 as in Haddingtonshire, the intervening area of Edinburghshire re- 

 mained almost without them. Their long continuance in the districts 

 where they had once broken out is remarkable. During the time 

 represented by the deposition of many hundred feet of strata, the 

 area of Linlithgowshire continued to be the theatre of a wonderful 

 volcanic activity, new cones breaking out as the old ones were 

 washed down. Yet the county of Edinburgh, only a few miles to 

 the east, remained during that long period almost wholly unaffected 

 by any volcanic action. Reference was then made at some length 

 to the extinct volcanoes in Auvergne and the Eifel, and it was shown 

 that in their form and distribution, their small size, the nature of 

 their products, and the protracted period during which they had 

 been in activity, they enable us to realize vividly what was the con- 

 dition of a great part of central Scotland during the earlier ages of 

 the Carboniferous period. 



The concluding portion of the paper dwelt upon the denudation of 

 the volcanic rocks of Auvergne and of Scotland. Mr. Scrope had 

 shown conclusively that the wide and deep valleys of the Loire, the 

 Dordogne, and other streams of central France had been carved out 

 of volcanic rocks and fresh- water strata by subaerial erosion alone. 

 The form and structure of these valleys were compared with those of 

 valleys which have been excavated out of volcanic rocks in Scotland, 

 and it was argued that the similarity of result was in all probability 

 due to a similarity of cause. In the Scottish valleys the influence of 

 ice, and perhaps in some cases also of the sea, had come into play to 

 augment or modify that of the subaerial forces. Yet there was every 

 reason to believe that in Scotland, as in France, the main share of 

 the work had been done by rains, frosts, and streams. 



Geological Society of Glasgow.— I. The ordinary meeting of 

 this society was held in Anderson's University, on the 11th November, 

 1869, Professor John Young, President, in the chair. — Mr. John 

 Young exhibited and made some observations upon a number of 

 bones found near Crofthead, in the new railway cutting of the Croft- 

 head and Kilmarnock Extension Line, Mr. Young stated that Dr. 

 Young and himself had examined the bones, and found that ten of 



