416 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 1, 



The proofs of the synchronism of these distant deposits through 

 the identification of their included ichthyolites, and the intermixture 

 of the sea- shells of Devon with the fishes of the Old Eed of Scot- 

 land, entitled me to say of my associates and self, that *' if our 

 researches in Russia had led to no other result, they would, we 

 conceive, have well repaid our labours*." 



I^owhere in Eussia is there, I repeat, a geological and zoological 

 transition from the Upper Silurian, like that which is seen in Shrop- 

 shire and Herefordshire. In this last-mentioned British tract the 

 observer traces a gradual passage upwards from the bone-bed of 

 the Upper Ludlow Eock with remains of a few peculiar fishes into 

 the Tilestones in which the genus Cephalaspis first appears, but still 

 associated with some Silurian moUusks, whilst in the beds imme- 

 diately overlying we have the GepTialaspis Lyellii. The total absence 

 of that genus, or, indeed, of any of the types of the Lower Old 

 Eed of England, Forfar, and Perthshire, in the lowest Devonian of 

 Eussia, when coupled with the fact that the Eussian ichthyolites 

 belong to the middle and upper zone of the series, is in perfect 

 harmony with the above-noticed physical break. 



Newer Red Sandstone of the West Coast of Ross-shire. — Professor 

 Nicol having recently described f a Newer Eed Sandstone as cover- 

 ing uttconformably the higher inclined beds of the older conglo- 

 merates and sandstones on the shores of Loch Greinord, as first 

 observed by Macculloch, let me add the notice of this deposit, which 

 I take from my note-book of 1827. On reaching the shore of 

 Loch Greinord, Professor Sedgwick and myself found three small 

 headlands to be composed of a newer red sandstone separated from 

 each other by sandy bays. The lowest beds are conglomerates and 

 marls, which near Udrigill Head repose upon highly inclined (in 

 parts nearly vertical) beds of older conglomerates and sandstone that 

 form points protruding through the newer strata. 



The lower conglomerate (now ascertained to be of Cambrian age) 

 is overlaid by micaceous red sandstone and marls with greenish- 

 wffite blotches, often of circular shape, whitish gritty beds of inco- 

 herent red sand, and other beds of conglomerate, the uppermost bed 

 visible near the burying-ground being red sandstone with calcareous 

 veins and red marl. Looking at the incoherent character of the 

 sands and marls, which there occupy the sea-board for about two 

 miles, and knowing that the conglomerate and grits with Lias 

 fossils, as I had observed in the previous year, occur at no great 

 distance on this coast of Eoss-shire, and also that these Lias beds 

 are underlaid by a red sandstone, my associate and self, without 

 publishing the details of our note-book, gave it as our belief that 

 the soft sandstone and marl of Loch Greinord belonged to the New 

 Eed Sandstone. 



But this our old inference is scarcely to be relied on ; for at that 



between the British and Eussian deposits, and the genera of ichthyolites which 

 characterize each division of the Old Red or Devonian rocks. 



* See ' Eussia in Europe,' &c., vol. i. p. 63. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiv. p. 167. 



