70 GEOLOGY OF THE LOTHIANS. 



as good a right to be considered as elevated after their for- 

 mation and consolidation, as the greenstone of Salisbury 

 Crags or Corstorphin ; and their vertical fronts have an 

 aspect as like the effect of fracture as these. If all the 

 trap rocks which exhibit a vertical front had acquired this 

 "form by being subjected to fractures, hardly one Plutonic 

 rock in the Lothians would be exempted — all would be con- 

 sidered as having been elevated after their eruption and 

 consolidation. The Dalmahoy Hills, the Bathgate Hills, 

 Blackford Hill, and the principal trap-rocks of Hadding- 

 tonshire must, then, all be imagined to have been disturbed 

 by igneous actions different from those which effected their 

 protrusion ; for they present perpendicular faces, and are 

 frequently inclined at high angles. 



As an instance of the pseudo-fractured appearance, we 

 may mention Binny Craig in West-Lothian. Here there is 

 the same gentle acclivity on one side of the hill, and mural 

 face on the other, as is so well seen in Salisbury Crags; and 

 there is, in short, an appearance as like fracture ; but the 

 circumstance of its resting upon horizontal strata is a suffi- 

 cient proof that it could not have been elevated after its 

 consolidation, for any upraising agent operating on it, must 

 also have acted on the sandstone and shale. When we 

 endeavour to shew, however, from such facts, that these 

 trap-rocks have not been tilted up after their eruption 

 amongst the^trata, but that the inclined position is con- 

 temporaneous with their formation, it is not to be under- 

 stood that we imply the same concerning the period when 

 the Neptunian deposits were raised ; for, on the contrary, 

 these evince that they were elevated by actions subsequent to 

 their deposition and solidification, and referable to the trap- 

 rocks with which they are connected. The one set of rocks 

 may be in an unaltered state, as far as their being moved 



