344 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



may belong to the same tribe [Pterichthys: see Mr, Gordon's Memoir, p. 21], 

 although the rocks in which they occur are supposed to belong to a different part 

 of the system." And in a footnote he has added — " In specimens shown me 

 by Dr. Anderson and Mr, Lyell, I observed that 'the external surface, instead of 

 being marked with minute tubercles, is covered with a reticulation of ridges in- 

 tercepting minute depressions," The concluding paragraph of the author's 

 description of this Section is as follows : — ] 



We also found the plants at the termination of the ridge of red 

 schistose sandstone, near the Hill of Eait, where some thin beds 

 of limestone containing nodules, and layers of black elastic bitu- 

 minous matter resembling fish-scales and impressions of plants, are 

 associated with a coarse red sandstone conglomerate, and beds of 

 schist with plants and nodules exactly resembling those of Lethen ; 

 and in the bed of a small stream which cuts deeper into the strata, 

 a coarse-grained white sandstone is partially exposed. These beds 

 appear to have suffered some disturbance ; and during their depo- 

 sition, denudation of the inferior strata has taken place, a thin band 

 of clay containing nodules and large angular fragments of the lower 

 sandstone being covered hy a solid mass of the same rock. 



Fossils in the Valley of the Nairn. 



[To Mr. Gordon's account {op. cit. pp. 36-38) Httle can be added from the 

 author's MS., besides the association of haematite with the barytes, except the 

 following footnote: — "Since the memoir was written, scales and buckler-shaped 

 bony plates have been found in the freestones extending along the shores of Nairn- 

 shire, from near Fort George to the quarry of King's Steps, east of Nairn. The 

 most common of these specimens is the bony plate figured and described imder 

 the name of Cephalaspis Gordonii from the upper part of the central or corn- 

 stone division, at Boghole on the Burn of Lethen, near Brodie House. These 

 scales were first noticed in an old wall by Dr. Gregor, of Nairn, and have since 

 been found abundantly by Mr. A. Davidson and myself in all the quarries at the 

 foot of the line of elevated shore east and west of that town. Although the 

 country between the fossiliferous rocks of the vale of the Nairn and the seashore 

 is obscured by drift, there can be little doubt (from the dip and direction of the 

 strata, and the relative distances) that the Balfreish and Cantray beds dip imder 

 the sandstones west of Nairn, in the same manner as those of Clune pass under 

 the cornstone series of the Findhorn. Some of the finest building-stones in the 

 kingdom have been procured from the more siliceous of these beds."] 



Fish-beds of the Spey, and of Tynat and Buckie in Banffshire 

 (PL XI. fig. 6). — Eeturning to the eastern part of the district under 

 description, it only remains to describe the rocks on the left bank of 

 the Spey near Fochabers, and at Tynat and Buckie in the adjoining 

 part of Banffshire, in which fossils of the same species as those from 

 Caithness and Lethen have been found. These ichthyohtes were 

 discovered by Mr. Gordon and myself soon after I had found fossils 

 on the Findhorn, and a multitude of details respecting them were 

 collected with a view of determining their relations ; but, as this has 

 been since done more satisfactorily by means of the sections on the 

 Burn of Lethen, it wiU not be necessary to occupy much time in 

 their description. 



High cliffs of the inferior great conglomerate are exposed along 

 the south side of the Spey (PL XL fig. 6) from near Fochabers as 



