Edinburgh Oeological Society, 295 



Nova Seotia, rests on (Si/jr/naria-underclays ; and there were other instances of trees 

 being common in the Coal-measures of Nova Scotia which were extremely rare in 

 England ; and the same discrepancies were found between different American coal- 

 fields. 



4. " Notes on the Geology of Arisaig, Nova Scotia." By the Kev. 

 D. Honeyman, D.C.L., F.G.S. 



The author referred to a previous paper on the Upper Silurian 

 Kocks of Nova Scotia, which he stated appeared to him now to be 

 generally repetitions of his Arisaig series. He noticed the occur- 

 rence of fossils in one of the beds previously supposed to be almost 

 destitute of organic remains, and described the occurrence, in Arisaig 

 township, of a band of crystalline rocks which appeared to contain 

 Eozoon and which was probably of Laurentian age. A note from 

 Prof. Eupert Jones, giving an account of the fossils referred to by 

 Dr. Honeyman, was also read. 



Discussion.— Sir W. Logan said that Dr. Hunt had seen the specimens of ser- 

 pentinuous limestone, and considered that they might be Laurentian. Sections of 

 them appeared to Dr. Dawson to show tubulation rather different from that found 

 in Laurentian JEozoon. They might, therefore, belong to a different age. 



Edinburgh Geological Society. — At a meeting of this Society, 

 held on the 3rd of March (A. Geikie, Esq., F.R.S., &c.. President, in 

 the chair), the following communications were read: — I. Notes on 

 the Geological Features of the Upper Coal Basin of the Firth of 

 Forth. By Henry Cadell, Esq. — The district embraced in the paper 

 extended from Blackness and Charleston on the east to Grangemouth 

 and Kincardine-on-Forth on the west. In that district, on the south 

 of the Forth, there are indications that coal has been worked in it for 

 several centuries. Along the shore a number of beds of trap were 

 seen capping eminences, and generally dipping to the westward, and 

 the author exhibited a section in which a seam of coal from eight to 

 ten feet thick had been burned out by the trap, and others were so 

 injured as to be quite unworkable. On the north side of the Forth 

 a great many traces of old coal workings were found, which for the 

 last half century had been abandoned. The old quaint burgh of 

 Culross was in former times a flourishing town from its coal mines 

 and salt works. His impression was that most of these trap beds 

 had been deposited as lava during the formation of the Coal-measures., 

 although in some cases they may have been injected into the strata. 

 Accompanying these beds of trap there is generally either above or 

 below a bed of what is called " culmstone," which is a white or 

 cream-coloured, smooth, argillaceous stone. This appears to have 

 been either fireclay or shale burnt by the trap, and frequently 

 beneath these trap beds are one or more thin beds of intensely hard 

 siliceous sandstone, which most probablj'- has been indurated by the 

 vicinity of the trap. Of fossil remains, a few good specimens have 

 been found in the sandstones and shales. — Mr. Geikie expressed the 

 obligations of the society to Mr. Cadell for his paper, though he was 

 disposed to disagree with him in reference to some of his remai'ks. 



