428 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [BeC. 15, 



schoolmaster of Elgin above alluded to, a large bone whicb he had 

 recently found in the sandstone quarries at Lossiemouth, he most 

 generously presented it to me as a contribution to the Museum of 

 Practical Geology. Being astonished at the state of preservation of 

 this bone (all the specimens hitherto found being casts, whether the 

 Telerpeton of Spynie or various curious undescribed forms in the Elgin 

 Museum, including the scales of Stagonolejpis), I lost no time in pro- 

 ceeding to Lossiemouth in company with my intelligent friend Mr. 

 G. Gordon, to endeavour to find more bony relics : for my readers 

 may well estimate the value I attached to such a bone as that which 

 I had seen there in association with the huge scales of Stagonolepis, 

 which, having been also found at Lossiemouth, had up to that mo- 

 ment been classed with Fishes. 



Fig. 2. — Section showing the position of the Reptiliferous Sandstone at 



Lossiemouth. (Length about 3 miles.) 

 s. 



Spynie Loch. Lossiemouth. Coast Ridge. N. 



a b'^ b c 



a. Laminated red and yellow sandstone (in the suburbs of Lossiemouth), 

 i*. White and yellowish sandstone, with Stagonolepis and Hyperodajpedon. 



b. Yellowish sandstone, forming the east end of the Burgh Head, Coast Ridge. 



c. Overlying cornstone on the sea-shore, d. Drift, covering the plain. 



To the north of the drift-covered low plain of Spynie, the lowest 

 strata (fig. 2, a), which are seen behind the houses of the suburb 

 of Lossiemouth, consist of finely-lamiuated soft shaly sandstone 

 striped with deep-red and yellow colours ; this band passes upwards 

 into very thick-bedded yellowish and white sectile freestones (6), 

 that are largely quarried on the side of a low cliff. It was iu the 

 lowest part of these (* in the section, fig. 2) that we detected several 

 other bones, which, at the first aspect, seemed to be also those of 

 reptiles ; and these also, under the scrutiny of Professor Huxley, 

 have proved to be portions of the Stagonolepis. These freestones, 

 underlaid by red strata and surrounded by hard splintery sandstone 

 (refuse of the quarrymen), present therefore precisely the same 

 mineral succession as parts of the parallel ridge of Elgin ; and in 

 each, reptilian remains have been found. I must indeed avow, that 

 it was this Lossiemouth section which most led me to class the 

 yellow and white Reptiliferous sandstone with the Old Ked, seeing 

 that there is visible a perfectly conformable passage from red beds up 

 into strata with reptilian remains. 



The sandstones of Lossiemouth and Stotfield are further seen to be 

 overlaid, in perfect conformity, by hard, thick-bedded, cherty, and 

 cavernous comstones (c) ranging down to the sea-shore, in which band 

 thin veins of lead-ore are occasionally found ; and thus the whole 

 series is knit together by a succession of mineral repetitions, which, in 



