430 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 15, 



have been detected for some years *, and especially of late, many of 

 the stones having been recently sent to Elgin to serve for the con- 

 strnction of the new railroad f. 



On visiting this quarry of yellow sandstone, the beds of which are 

 inclined to the N.N.W., and where footprints have been found for 

 many years in different layers, and on seeing that there might be 

 procured, with a little precaution, finer impressions than any we 

 could then find, or than had been sent formerly to London by Capt. 

 Biickenden (as fine, in short, as those I had seen on the premises of 

 Mr. Alexander Young of Elgin, and which had been derived from 

 this spot), I requested Mr. Gordon to secure some of the best ex- 

 amples from the proprietor of the quarries. This he has since done, 

 and has transmitted to me many good examples of those impressions. 



At Burgh Head, where they run out in a narrow promontory, the 

 culminating point of which is about 70 feet above the sea, the yel- 

 lowish sandstones are associated with strong hard beds containing 

 pebbles of quartz and granite (an association which reminded me of 

 the sandstone and conglomerate reefs of Embo, on the Dornoch Firth), 

 the whole having a northerly dip at the prevalent low angle of 4° 

 or 5°. 



The parallelism and similarity of structure of the chief mass of 

 the sandstones of the coast-ridge to those north of Elgin, and the 

 existence in each of the same reptile (Stagonolepis), might alone 

 lead to the conclusion that the one was simply a repetition of the 

 other. Seeing the manner in which the beds of the coast-ridge fold 

 over with a gentle dip to the south, they may indeed well be supposed 

 to recur in the Elgin ridge, whether near Spynie Castle on the east 

 or in its western prolongation to the Moor of Alves. 



At the same time, it is to be inferred that some of the strata in 

 the coast-ridge are higher in the series than any which are visible 

 near Elgin. The pebble-beds of Burgh Head may, indeed, be local 

 equivalents or repetitions of those of the Moor of Alves at the west 

 end of the Elgin ridge ; but the overlying cornstones of Stotfield or 

 Lossiemouth, extending as they do upwards of a nule along the coast, 

 and surmounting the reptiUferous sandstones (to say nothing of the 

 red reefs near the Skerries), must be considered younger strata. The 

 repetition therefore of such limestones, from near the base of the 

 whole series at Eoths (fig. 1, p. 424) to the environs of Elgin, and to 

 those ledges on the coast which are every here and there apparent, 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 97. 



t After my last inspection of this county, Mr. Beetles visited these quarries, 

 and, carrying wood and carpenters to the spot from Forres (as he informed me 

 by letter), directed the process of uncovering the foot-marked flagstones, and 

 obtained many large and fine specimens. The Eev. Gr. Gordon informs me 

 that footprints have been observed at the Clashan quarry of Covesea, and by 

 Mr. Anderson, the original discoverer, at his intermediate quarry of Greenhow. 

 In May last Mr. Gordon had the satisfaction of securing for the Elgin Museum, 

 from Messrs. Smith and Fraser, a block, which had been quarried at Lossiemouth, 

 and partly dressed for the step of a stair, on which there are footprints similar 

 to those found at Mason's Heugh, &c. The footsteps are therefore now known 

 at those three localities. — Jime 1 5, 1859. 



