and so7ne other Stratified Deposits in the North of Scotland. 309 



are nearly conformable to the inferior red conglomerate, although their junc- 

 tion with that rock is obscured by boulders and shingle. The shale here 

 contains blue limestone nodules, much lignite and carbonaceous matter, nu- 

 merous casts and impressions of ammonites, very slender belemnites (a variety 

 of the belemnites abbreviatus of Miller), and scales of fish of a rounded form, 

 some of which are converted into bitumen. The most remarkable bed is a 

 calcareous aggregate of fossils, amongst which is an ammonite, (probably the 

 A. Konigi,) gryphaea incurva, a new species of plagiostoma, and an unde- 

 scribed bivalve. In the more compact blue limestone are clusters of young 

 ammonites, resembling those of Watchet in Somersetshire, and of so minute 

 a size as scarcely to be distinguishable by the naked eye. These beds, as 

 well as those near the North Sutor, are clearly of the lias formation, and there- 

 fore may be regarded as the base of the series described at Brora, where the 

 inferior oolite with its subordinate coal-seams dips below the level of the sea. 



The elevated coast ridge near Cromarty displays upon its eastern side not 

 only the relation of that series to the red conglomerate, but also proves the 

 latter to have been the only intermediate deposit between the lias and the 

 primitive rocks. 



Although in several places near Cromarty an unstratified granitic rock resem- 

 bling that of the Ord is occasionally seen in contact with the red conglomerate 

 (this latter in such cases being always highly inclined), yet the greater por- 

 tion of the cliffs on the southern part of this coast consists of the stratified 

 primitive rocks. Thus between Ethie and Rosemarkie, micaceous and horn- 

 blende schists alternate with talcose, white quartz and red felspar rocks, most 

 of which are highly elevated and much foliated. 



I examined a great part of the east coasts of Inverness, Moray, Banff, and 

 Aberdeen, without discovering any traces of the stratified beds with fossils 

 above described : and, if the comparison which I have instituted between them 

 and those of the Yorkshire coast be correct, these two deposits, though appa- 

 rently separated from each other by an interval of more than 230 miles, must 

 have originated in the operation of similar causes, and are consequently re- 

 ferrible to the same geological epoch. 



Western Islands. 



Skj/e. 



In the "Geology of the Western Highlands," vol. i. p. 339, Dr. MacCulloch, 

 after remarking upon the secondary strata of this island, adds, ^'^ other analo- 

 gies will also readily suggest themselves to English geologists," &c. 1 will 



