1858.1 MURCHISON NORTHEEN HIGHLANDS, ETC. 357 



Another theory, which had been previously propounded by the 

 lamented Hugh Miller, was, that the quartz-rocks and marble lime- 

 stone of Sutherland might be the metamorphosed representatives of 

 the Old Eed and Caithness series on the East*. Independently, 

 however, of the organic remains, both these views seemed to me to be 

 incompatible with the physical order of the masses. For, if Sedg- 

 wick and myself did not err in supposing that the true Old Red of the 

 East Coast reposed upon and was made up of the materials of an 

 upper portion of these quartzose and micaceous rocks, it was manifest 

 that such original strata could not be the equivalent of either of the 

 posterior formations ! 



Seeing that the question would be still more satisfactorily settled 

 if better fossils than those which Mr. Salter and myself believed to be 

 Lower Silurian were obtained, I induced my friend Mr. Peach to 

 renew his search and devote more time to it ; and the result was a 

 second collection of such well-defined forms as dispelled all doubt, and 

 enabled me unhesitatingly to say that the suggestion I offered at the 

 Glasgow Meeting of 1855 is absolutely correct, and that the rocks in 

 question are truly Lower Silurian. Under these circumstances, I 

 offered a general sketch of what I considered to be the order and 

 succession of the older rocks of my native country, the ISTorthern 

 Highlands f. 



Feeling, however, that there still remained several points which 

 required a stricter examination, I again visited the North of Scot- 

 land in the summer of 1858. On that occasion I induced Mr. C. 

 Peach to be my companion in the counties of Sutherland and Caith- 

 ness, as well as in the Orkney and Shetland Islands % '■> ^"^^ I have 

 only to regret that official business deprived me of his valuable assist- 

 ance when I examined the more southern counties of Ross, Inver- 

 ness, Moray, Banff, &c. 



One of my main objects was to ascertain whether the view taken 

 by Professor Sedgwick and myself thirty-one years ago, respecting 

 the age of the yellow sandstones of Elgin, Morayshire, which we had 

 grouped with the Old Red Sandstone, was correct. It was, in short, 

 of great importance to determine whether the air-breathing lizard 

 (the Telerpeton) which had been found in these rocks was reaUy of 

 that remote age, or whether these light-coloured sandstones might 

 not pertain to the Oolitic and Liassic series, masses of which occur 



* This view was propounded before the Physical Society of Edinbiirgh and 

 printed in the Witness newspaper. The author was so obhging as to furnish 

 me with a printed copy of the memoir, from which I hare extracted the admi- 

 rable description of the sandstone and conglomerate mountains of the West Coast, 

 given at page 363. 



t Eead before the Geological Society, February 3, 1858. 



X The officers of the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses were so kind 

 as to convey myself and companion from Scapa Bay near Kirkwall, in Pomona, 

 through the other Orkney Islands which I had not visited, to the furthest point 

 of the Shetland Islands, and finally to disembark my companion and self at Cape 

 Wrath, where we recommenced our survey of the North-west of Scotland. I shall 

 ever remember with delight the society of Mr. Alexander Cunningham, the 

 Secretary, Mr. Thomas Stevenson, the masterly engineer of the Lighthouses, and 

 of Mr. W. Swan, the Mathematician, and Mr, Grant, the Eegistrar. 



