36 GEOLOGY OF THE LOTHIANS. 



rests. Causes of no greater intensity than those now in ac- 

 tion, appear, though continued through as long a series of 

 ages as the most confirmed Huttonian could desire, per- 

 fectly inadequate to produce such effects ; but, on the con- 

 trary, in the fact of mountain chains being invariably more 

 or less flanked with conglomerates, formed of the component 

 rocks of these chains, and constituting mountain masses, 

 and extensive tracts of country, there is reason to believe, 

 that the actions at present existing, whether aqueous or ig- 

 neous, though similar in nature, in their magnitude differ 

 completely from those which existed in the primeval ages 

 of the world. All the phenomena exhibited by the rocky 

 masses of the globe, if viewed without any desire to explain 

 them by a favourite theory, testify, that existing causes be- 

 come progressively less adequate to explain geological ap- 

 pearances, as we examine from the newest to the oldest 

 known formations. 



The first locality which we have to notice as exhibit- 

 ing a junction of the transition rocks with the sandstone, 

 is in the bed of the Heriot Water, a stream which runs 

 past the old tower of Colbrandspath. The transition 

 rocks are inclined at great angles, and at the point where 

 the junction is visible, they dip S. S.E. at 40° ; and on these 

 the slightly inclined sandstone conglomerate rests. (Plate 

 I., Fig. 1.) A little to the south of the Pease Burn, the 

 grey wacke and red sandstone may, in the sea-cliffs, often be 

 found in immediate connection, the former, dipping to the 

 N.E. at 20°, and resting on the contorted, and in some in- 

 stances vertical transition rocks, which range E. N.E. and 

 W. S.W. (Plate I., Fig. 2. and Plate II., Fig. 1.) 



At Red Heugh there is a most interesting display of the 

 several relations of the two classes of rocks. On looking 

 down from the cliffs, the junctional phenomena are exhibited 



