184 Geological Sketch. By Kalph Kichardson. 



with iron, issued on the shore ; whilst that peculiar red 

 deposit known as ruddle {Scottice Keel) also occurs, and is 

 used by shepherds for marking their sheep. Festooning the 

 sea-cliffs, hung mosses from which dripped water laden with 

 lime. In course of time the moss becomes petrified, and a 

 solid mass of it, called the Ballabus rock, was seen lying 

 on the shore. A Raised beach was also observed. 



Perhaps the most interesting feature of this portion of the 

 coast was the succession of fantastic sea-stacks and sandstone 

 arches which occurred along the shore from the Billsdean 

 burn northwards. These remarkable phenomena are due 

 partly to subaerial, partly to marine, erosion. Percolating 

 from above, rain and spring- water split rocks into fragments 

 by filtering through their joints. The sea does the rest ; 

 for, getting possession of one of these fragments, it operates 

 upon it like a turning-lathe, leaving it eventually standing 

 rounded and alone, like a gigantic ninepin on the beach. 

 The "Standalane" rock is the most celebrated of these pillars, 

 but others as remarkable were observed. Nowhere could we 

 have obtained a better object-lesson of the vulnerability of 

 rocks when exposed to the action of the sea, — not merelj' to 

 the fierce battery of its waves, but to that more fatal, 

 because more insidious mode of attack, its slow, ceaseless, 

 gradual, erosion. 



Boulder-clay, formed from the subjacent rocks, covered the 

 coast-section to some depth near the old Salt-pan ; and at 

 this point the excursion-party left the shore and struck 

 inland to Innerwick Castle, the picturesque "Dean" of which 

 has been carved by the Thornton burn out of rocks belonging 

 to the Calciferous Sandstone series, comprising beds which 

 occasionally contain fragmentary plants and form an impure 

 coal. 



With regard to the palaeontology of the district traversed, 

 fragments of plants are occasionally abundant in the white 

 sandstones of Dunglass shore and burn ; whilst, on the 

 Billsdean shore, remains of Stigmaria, Lepidodendron, and 

 other plants have been found. Encrinites, and Annelide 

 burrows occur in an impure limestone on the shore, near 

 the 34th milestone from Edinburgh.* 



* Geological Survey Memoir of the Geology of East Lothian, 1866, 

 p. 73. 



