338 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



3. Upper division. Fine, white, grey,' 

 and yellow siliceous sandstone and 

 conglomerates, with cornstones con- 

 taining galena, &c. 



Quartzose Conglomerate of 

 England. (See ' Silurian Sy- 

 stem,' vol. i. p. 171.) 



The general characters of the Old Eed Sandstone rocks of Moray- 

 shii'e and the adjoining counties were long ago well described by- 

 Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison * ; and Dr. M'Culloch has 

 laid down the general boundaries of the system with considerable 

 accuracy. But in the absence of organic remains, it was impossible 

 to compare the several parts of this vast system with those at a 

 distance, or even vn.th portions of the same rock in the district itself. 

 It is therefore fortunate that these strata have proved to be very 

 rich in fossils, distributed in beds which are laid open in magnificent 

 natural sections, and which afford the means of tracing the several 

 divisions of the system throughout the counties between the Gram- 

 pian Mountains and the Moray Frith, and of instituting a comparison 

 with those of other parts of the kingdom. 



[The paper, as read before the Society, commences here ; but the first para- 

 graph of Mr. Lonsdale's Abstract (Proceed. Greol. Soc. vol. iii. p. 141 ) gives the 

 chief matter of this portion of Dr. Malcolmson's Memoir.] 



It is hoped that the discovery of a great variety of fossils, in various 

 parts of the district referred to, in strata whose order of superposition 

 can be ascertained (and one series of which is identical with those 

 of Clashbinnie and other locahties to the south of the Grampians, 

 and the other with those of Caithness, Gamrief, &c.), will assist in 

 completing the history of those rocks which are developed on such 

 a stupendous scale in the northern and central parts of Scotland. 

 But, as one of the most important of these localities was discovered 

 only on the 4th of last month [May, 1839], it is not to be ex- 

 pected that I should attempt more than to place before the Society 

 the leading facts as yet ascertained regarding the relations of these 

 strata, — that the inferences to which they lead, and the singular 

 forms of many of the remains may be examined by those now engaged 

 in tracuig the history of these rocks in other localities:^. I have 

 also brought prominently forward the important fact, that great 

 denudations were in progress during the whole period of the depo- 



*■ Geol. Trans. 2 ser. vol. iii. p. 151, note. 



t I cannot help thinking that some verbal error has found its way into the 

 quotation from a letter of M. Agassiz, given in Mr. Murchison' s 'Silurian Sy- 

 stem,' p. 599, where the genus Holojptychus is stated to occur at Gamrie so well 

 preserved as to have enabled him to correct his ideas regarding the genus Gh/ro- 

 lepis. I have failed to discover any well-marked specimen that could be referred 

 to the fish called after Mr. Noble, amongst the many I have seen from this locality. 

 Fish with scales, having the character of this genus, however, occur at Gamrie, 

 Cromarty, &c. It may be observed that in the passages quoted from M. Agassiz' 

 letter, he does not mention Clashbinnie. 



I With this view I propose presenting to the Museum such of the specimens 

 as may be thought worthy of a place in the Society's collection, it being my wish, 

 and that of the Kev. G. Gordon and Mr. Stables (my colleagues in the investiga- 

 tion), that as complete a series as possible should be deposited here, reserving the 

 duplicates for the Elgin Museum and our own cabinets. 



