On Hawick and its Neighbourhood. 73 



and London. Soon after my communications to the two 

 first of these societies, Messrs. Wilson and Lapworth pro- 

 duced other specimens from the Silurian Rocks of Roxburgh- 

 shire and Mid-Lothian, including a Proto virgularia from 

 near Hawick and some graptolites from the upper valley of 

 the Slitrig. Their other specimens were from the upper 

 Silurian formations, in which graptolites and crustaceans 

 are more abundant. Subsequently, Mr. Robert Michie found 

 a good specimen also in the valley of the Slitrig, which Dr. 

 Woodward, of the British Museum, has since described as a 

 new species of crustacean. Next, Miss Jessie Watson picked 

 up, in the quarry at Stirches, a well-marked impression of 

 what appeared to me to be a plant resembling a fern, but 

 has been set down by higher authorities as the footprints 

 of a Nereite. Mr. Alexander Michie subsequently found the 

 same impressions in situ, and sent a good specimen to the 

 British Museum, which is now in their collection. He and 

 myself have subsequently added many others, as yet name- 

 less, to our collections : and these we will have pleasure in 

 showing to those members of the Club who may take an 

 interest in them. Only it must be understood that, although 

 far more rare and interesting in a geological point of view, 

 they have neither the beauty nor the distinctness of the 

 fossils of the coal measures, which belong to a much later 

 period. I regard them as almost entirety vegetable impres- 

 sions, but it is the cumulative evidence of the whole which 

 most clearly establishes that, not the appearance of any 

 single specimen. 



Mr. Robert Ewen has also deposited in our museum a very 

 remarkable and unique fossil, found by his son in the green- 

 stone dyke previously described. It is about a yard in 

 length and several inches in diameter, cylindrical in its 

 lower half and tapering above, the lower part of dolorite, 

 the upper of porphyry. It has been described by certain 

 geologists as a basaltic column, as if any basaltic pillar had 

 been found, either single, or circular, or tapering. I regard 

 it also as a petrified plant swept into the current of lava 

 from the adjacent rock. 



I have also, I may add, found in more than ten different 

 places, well-marked examples of impressions made by 

 showers of volcanic sand, sometimes in little hard grains, 

 sometimes in a melted condition. A description of some^of 

 these, with various accompanying features, was read in a 



