REPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1900 233 



up, 80 as to rise far above the sea-level, Continental 

 conditions set in, and Desert conditions returned, and 

 affected Britain for the last time in its geological history. 

 As the newly-formed strata were slowly forced upward they 

 underwent more or less disturbance and faulting. The 

 process of upheaval was a slow one, so slow, in fact, that 

 the waste of the Tipland areas nearly always kept pace 

 with the rate of elevation. It was the materials laid down 

 under these conditions, across the worn and wasted edges 

 of the disturbed strata of older date, which afterwards 

 formed the New Bed Eocks. These were laid down on an 

 irregular surface formed of rocks of all the ages older than 

 themselves. They probably overspread the whole of Berwick- 

 shire. Infiltrations from these New Eed Rocks have 

 produced very material changes amongst the strata upon 

 which they originally lay, and though most, if not all, 

 of the New Eed has been wasted from the surface of 

 Berwickshire, marks of its former presence are to be 

 seen in the deep-red staining of the sandstones. This 

 colouration forms a conspicuous feature in connection with 

 the Carboniferous sandstones of the Berwickshire coast, and 

 is well seen at Eoss, Lamberton, Marshall Meadows, the 

 Burgess's Cove, and other places. The same chemical infil- 

 trations, cai-rying down solutions of carbonate of magnesia, 

 have converted many of the Carboniferous limestones into 

 dolomite. Some of them, indeed, have been further changed 

 into haematite. Traces of all these features are well 

 seen at the places visited by the Club on the present 

 occasion. 



At a much later period in British history, another great 

 volcanic episode occurred. There is no reason to think that 

 the volcanoes themselves actually occurred here. Nevertheless, 

 vast quantities of eruptive materials, chiefly basalt, ate their 

 way upward through the older rocks in many parts of 

 Britain during this volcanic period ; and two or three basalt 

 dykes, which are probably, or almost certainly, of this age, 

 intersect the Carboniferous rocks near Eoss Point, and at 

 other places along the coast near to Berwick. Of the later 

 changes which have given lise to the present features of the 

 Berwickshire coast much can be said, but the subject is 



