340 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



sandstones, and furnishing fragments to the inferior conglome- 

 rates. 



Inferior or Great Conglomerate, 



[The author's description of this conglomerate is printed in the Rev. Mr. 

 G-ordon's Memoir, ojp. cit. pp. 29, 30 ; the only material difference being that Dr. 

 Malcolmson has corrected " HiU of Eait " into " Hill of Urchony, south of 

 Nairn."] 



Fossiliferous Strata of the Central or Cornstone division of the Old 

 Red Sandstone, which near Elgin rest directly on the great Conglo- 

 merate. See Section, PL XI. fig. 2. — The bed of calciferons con- 

 glomerate and red marly sandstone of Scat-craig near Elgin, for- 

 merly described (Proceed. Geol. Soe. 15th April, 1838), rests directly 

 on the great conglomerate. Many of the bones and scales haye been 

 waterworn previously to the consolidation of the rock. They consist 

 of scales of the Holoptychus Nohilissimus and other fishes, — several 

 kinds of teeth, some of them of great size, — jaws with teeth, — ^new 

 genera and species of ichthyodoruhtes, &c. A few of them have 

 been examined by M. Agassiz, and at his recommendation I have 

 had accurate drawings made of as many distinct forms as I had 

 access to, mostly the property of the Elgin Museum, and of Mr. 

 Gordon, of Binnie, Mr. Martin, and Mr. P. Duff. The fossiliferous 

 rock is visible for only a short distance, where the drift has been 

 removed by a small stream, — the upper stratum consisting of a con- 

 glomerate composed of completely rolled pebbles of various primary 

 rocks and a few angular fragments of sandstone, cemented by ferru- 

 ginous sand and calc-spar. Eossils are rarely found in this stratum, 

 which exactly resembles some beds on the Pindhorn, which are also 

 devoid of fossils. Although the country is much obscured by drift, 

 the situation of this rock below the cornstone of Elgin, as inferred 

 by Mr. Gordon from the dip and direction of the strata*, has since 

 been fnlly confirmed by the discovery of the same fossils in the 

 magnificent natural sections from the cornstone to the gneiss laid 

 open by the Pindhorn. 



Besting on these Elgin cornstones, a series of very beautiful white 

 and yellow sihceous sandstones occurs, associated with a very hard 

 conglomerate composed of a paste of siliceous grains, throughout 

 which many completely rounded pebbles of white quartz and a few 

 of gneiss and granite are scattered. The strike of these beds can be 

 traced from Quarrywood Hill, near Elgin, to Burgie, 3-|- miles east 

 of Porres, where they rest, at an angle of 10° IST., on the vertical 

 edges of the gneiss, which is interlaced with veins of granite ; and 

 the projecting gneissic hiU of Blervie cuts off these sandstones of the 

 east of the county from those of the Pindhorn and of Nairnshire. 

 This siliceous conglomerate and sandstone, which here, as in parts 

 of England and Wales, appears to form the upper division of the Old 

 Eed System t, extends over a considerable part of the North-eastern 

 district of Moray, the great fertility of which principally depends on 



* Geol. Proceedings, April 15, 1838, and Murchison's 'Silurian System,' 

 p. 600. t Murchison's ' Silurian System,' p. 168. 



