and some other Stratified Deposits in the North of Scotland. 297 



a rubbly limestone, an aggregate of shells, leaves, stems of plants, lignite, &c. 

 The prevaihng fossils of this bed and the casts in the freestone are referrible 

 to the calcareous grit or base of the coral rag of the oolitic series of En- 

 gland: viz. ammonites vertebralis, A. perarmatus, A. cordatus, the pecten of 

 Marcham Field, Oxfordshire ; gryphaea bullata, G. nana, &c. ; Lucina crassa, 

 modiola bipartita ; most of which occur in the calcareous grit on the summit 

 of Scarborough cliff*. It is remarkable, hovs^ever, that the bivalve hitherto 

 called the Venus of the Portland stone is found in the upper beds at Braambury 

 Hill. It proves to be a cardium, and has at length been figured as C. dissi- 

 mile, in Min. Con. tab. 533. (For further details see the Table of Fossils.) 



A similar transition takes place at Abingdon, from a rubbly limestone into 

 a siliceous rock, where many of the fossil shells are of the same genera and 

 species as those now described. 



If this sandstone of Braambury be not exactly similar to any rock in En- 

 gland, there is a complete identity between its fossils and those of the cal- 

 careous grit of the N. E. coast of Yorkshire ; and the inferior strata in both 

 cases have a close mineralogical resemblance. At the southern edge of the 

 Eastern Moorlands, the lowest beds of the coral rag formation lose entirely 

 their calcareous oolitic structure, and form lofty escarpments of white and 

 yellowish sandstone : these are succeeded by shale containing belemnites 

 and ammonites, from beneath which the great coal and sand formation 

 rises to the North. A like succession takes place at Brora : in descending 

 from the Braambury quarries to the coal-pit, some of the strata are obscured 

 by diluvium ; but these it may be inferred are the equivalents of those forma- 

 tions which intervene in Yorkshire between the calcareous grit and the strata 

 containing coal; because beds with the fossils of those formations are exposed 

 in various reefs along the coast of Sutherland, and the micaceous sandy beds 

 with thin courses of shale, on the banks of the river above the coal-pit, 

 represent another part of the same series f. 



The coal-pit now in work is situated at the base of the sand and shale cliffs 



* The beautiful casts of several new species of pecten in the quartzose sandstone of Braam- 

 bury, are very similar to those of the calcareous grit of Malton, and Scarborough, recently 

 figured in Mineral Conchology, tab. 543. 



t On the coast of Yorkshire the strata appear in the following descending order, from Filey 

 Bay to Whitby. 1. Coral rag. 2. Calcareous grit. 3. Shale with fossils of the Oxford clay. 

 4. Kelloway rock (swelling out into an important arenaceous formation). 5. Cornbrash. 6. Coaly 

 grit (of Smith). 7. Pier stone (according to Mr. Smith, the equivalent of the great oolite), 

 8. Sandstone and shale with peculiar plants and various seams of coal. 9. A bed with fossils of 

 the inferior oolite. 10. Marl-stone ? 11. Alum shale or Lias.— All the above strata are now 

 identified by abundant organic remains. 



2q2 



