^S8 Mi'. George Tate's Miscellanea Geological 



The Black Hill, overlooking Earlston, has an elevation of 

 more than 1031 feet. Ascending it on the north side, por- 

 phyry was found, wherever the rock was exposed, up to its 

 very summit — porphyry of a common type, a red felstoue 

 base with felspar crystals scattered through it, the same, 

 indeed, as is seen in the Cheviots and Eildons, but of a later 

 age ; for while this had been erupted subsequently to the old red 

 sandstone, it is well ascertained that the Cheviot porphyry 

 was elevated prior to that era. On the south side of the 

 Black Hill an instructive section is exposed, shewing upwards 

 of twenty feet of porphyry overlying some fifty feet or more 

 of red sandstone. A keen search for fossils was made by the 

 members of the Club to determine the age of this sandstone, 

 and Mr. Wood, of Earlston, was the first to bring to light 

 an organism, which lived long ages ago when these red beds 

 were deposited. Further researches discovered more, and 

 slabs were opened completely covered with the large enamelled 

 scales of Holoptychius Nohilissimus, a fish characteristic of 

 the upper beds of the old red sandstone, A junction between 

 this and the beds beneath could not be discovered ; but, 

 doubtless, it rests on the upturned edges of Greywacke or 

 Cambro-Silurian rocks, for at a short distance westward, but 

 at a considerably lower level, these rocks were seen in the 

 Leader Water, highly inclined and having a direction of S.S.E. 

 to N.N.W. 



At the east end of Earlston, the pelvis and other bones of 

 the Cervus Elaphus have recently been found, at a depth of 

 twelve feet below the surface, in a vegetable deposit, above 

 which were marly and reddish clays. 



Farne Islands. 



In the Proceedings of the Club, Vol. III., p. 231, there 

 is an account of the geology of these Islands ; and a notice 

 of the glaciation of the surface of the basalt on the Stapel 

 Island is given in Vol. V.,p. 238. These Islands are almost 

 entirely formed of basalt, part of the great basaltic whin-sill, 

 which extends through the county from Kyloe Crags to the 

 borders of Cumberland, and thence into Yorkshire ; but in 

 some places, as between the Inner Fame and the Noxes, and 

 in the gut between the Brownsman and the Stapel, stratified 

 fossiliferous rocks are enclosed in the basalt. When the 

 Club visited these Islands in July, Mr. D. Milne Home 

 detected another patch of these sedimentary rocks on the 

 north side of the Brownsman. The relation of these isolated 



