1862.] POWRIE^-OLD RED SATfDSTOKE. 433 



of the Upper Old Eed Sandstone, and that thus the same break and 

 want of conformity exists in the Old Eed Sandstones of Forfarshire 

 and Fifeshire which has been so well shown by Mr. Geikie to take 

 place in those of the South of Scotland. Yet it must be confessed 

 that the lithological character of our rocks changes so frequently that 

 this can only be looked upon as presumptive evidence, and by no means 

 as sure proof. In order that this notice of these sandstones may be 

 more readily understood, I herewith give a sketch-map of that part 

 of Fifeshire referred to in this paper, in which I have laid down the 

 approximate boundaries of these upper and lower formations. These 

 boundaries, however, can only be looked upon as mere approximations, 

 as the junctions in, I may say, every case are deeply buried under 

 the alluvium of the valley of the Eden ; and this, as well as most of 

 the other streams running along the strike of the rocks, affords no 

 section of them. 



The Fossils. — Regarding the Palaeontology of the Old Red Sand- 

 stones of Fifeshire, in the lower series the only fossiliferous beds I 

 have yet observed are those of Park-hill, and here the ParJca deci- 

 piens was first noticed, and so named, by the late Dr. Fleming ; and 

 during a visit I paid to that locality last summer. Dr. Anderson, who 

 kindly accompanied me, and pointed out the various localities in the 

 neighbourhood of Newburgh, picked up a piece of shale having a small 

 portion of a plate of Pterygotus Anglicus beautifully impressed upon 

 its surface. Besides these, I am not aware of any organisms belong- 

 ing to these lower formations having been as yet found in the county 

 of Fife. As to the upper series, no fossils have been found in the con- 

 glomerate ; and, in the red sandstones, only scales and other portions 

 of Holoiotychius have yet been discovered. These organisms extend 

 upwards into the overlying yellow sandstones. The only locality 

 which has as yet proved richly fossUiferous is Dura Den, so justly 

 celebrated for its various genera of fossil fishes ; these have already 

 been so frequently and, especially of late, so ably described by Pro- 

 fessor Huxley in the Tenth Decade of Plates published in the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey, that it would not only be pre- 

 sumptuous but superfluous in me to give any lengthened description 

 of them ; but having had, since the diggings for the British Associa- 

 tion were commenced in 1860, opportunities of examining several 

 hundreds of those fiLshes (I may especially refer to a collection lately 

 made* for, and now in the Museum of, the Philosophical and Literary 

 Society of St. Andrews), I intend to notice some points which seem 

 to me either to differ from previous descriptions of, or to add to our 

 information regarding, these divisions of the Old Red Sandstone. 



HoLOPTYCHius. — Such very considerable alterations will yet require 

 to be made in the classification of the fishes hitherto described as 

 belonging to this genus, that I intend this to form the subject of a 

 future communication; in the meantime I would merely remark 

 that only two species of Holojptychius, H, Andersoni and H. Nohi- 

 lissimus, and of the latter only detached scales and other fragments, 

 are, in my opinion, found in the sandstones of Dura Den. 



* By permission of Mrs. Dalgleish, on whose estate this deposit is situated. 



