﻿Ixxvi PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [MayiQoS, 



Some important contributions to the subject have, indeed, appeared 

 elsewhere, but the main part of the original papers in which the 

 successive steps in the enquiry have been taken is to be found in 

 our volumes. To some of the early numbers of the Transactions 

 Macculloch communicated a long series of his observations among the 

 crystalline rocks of the Scottish Highlands, and gave the first clear 

 account of their mineralogical characters and their distribution.^ 

 He recognized the existence of an ancient gneiss, overlain uncon- 

 formably by a thick mass of red sandstone, which he believed 

 to pass upwards into various kinds of schists. Some years later 

 his observations were confirmed by Sedgwick & Murchison," who, 

 however, went astray in regarding as Old E,ed Sandstone what he 

 had correctly ' ranked in the class of primary rocks/ Por nearly 

 thirty years thereafter, the Archaean rocks of the North of Scotland 

 remained without further exploration until in 1854 the discovery, 

 by Charles Peach, of fossils in the limestone of Durness aroused 

 keen interest. Murchison and Nicol began the renewed study of 

 the geology of that district, and published the results of their 

 labours in the Society's Quarterly Journal. These two able 

 observers in the end arrived at different conclusions as to the 

 sequence of the rocks. We are all familiar with the later 

 contributions to the discussion of the problem, and nearly all those 

 who took part in it are happily still with us. The main question 

 in dispute has been satisfactorily solved, and it is a matter of 

 gratification to us that some of the more important steps that led to 

 this satisfactory ending have been chronicled in the pages of the 

 Quarterly Journal. But the rocks of the Scottish Highlands still 

 offer many questions which remain undetermined. In particular, 

 the true stratigraphical relations of the Dalradian or Eastern 

 (Moine) Schists present difiiculties which may continue for a long 

 time to tax the combined efforts of the field-geologist and the 

 petrographer. A few interesting and suggestive papers, however, 

 which have been published by the Society, have thrown some 

 light on parts of the subject. I would especially refer to the 

 communications of Messrs. Barrow,'^ Home & Greenly,* J. B. Hill,' 

 and Cunningham-Craig.® 



^ Trans, ser. 1, vols, ii, iii, iv, & ser. 2, vol. i. 

 2 Ibid. ser. 2, vol. iii (1829) pp. 21, 125. 



^ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. toI. xlix (1893) p. 330. This publication is 

 hereinafter cited by the abbreviation Q. J, 

 * Q. J. Iii (1896) 633. 

 •' Q. J. Iv (1899) 470. '^ Q. J. Ix (1904) 10. 



