360 Mr. MuRCHisoN on the Strata of the Oolitic Series, Sjc. 



a sufficient period to the examination of these coasts, they would find a 

 rich harvest in those splendid cliffs on the north-eastern coast of Skye, which, 

 between Portree and Holm, rise to the height of six or seven hundred feet, 

 and also in those of Scrapidale on the S.E. coast of Rasay where the escarp- 

 ment is equally magnificent ; — both of which exhibit the several formations 

 from the cornbrash down to the lias. In these localities the beds abovemen- 

 tioned are perhaps as fully developed as in any part of England : for the trap, 

 which so generally obscures the stratification in the Hebrides, is here omitted; 

 and the beds, being usually horizontal and little altered, afford a vast variety 

 in their zoological contents. 



It has been deemed impossible to load the pages of the " Transactions " 

 with the numberless details which are exhibited in the detached coast sections 

 of the Hebrides ; but the following account of the succession of beds forming 

 a part of the N.E. coast of Skye, may serve as an example of the kind of evi- 

 dence upon which the conclusions of this and the preceding paper are founded. 

 At the distance of nearly two miles from the valley of Deal, the high ridge 

 of trap recedes from the cliff, and ranging round to the western flank of 

 Holm, from Scoribrick to the Storr, leaves an elevated elliptical plateau about 

 six hundred feet above the sea, of one mile and a half in length, and nearly 

 half a mile in its greatest width. The whole section, as exhibited in the cliffs 

 commencing at the western end of this plateau, and terminating at the level 

 of the sea near the Prince's Cave, presents the following descending order. 



1 . Sandstone, appearing at the base of the trap, and also seen in the green talus sloping from it. 



2. Shelly limestone, representing'^by its structure and organic remains cornbrash and forest marble, 



about forty feet. 



3. Great white sandstone, fifty or sixty feet thick, overlaid by a thin bed of fissile shale. The 



lower beds more slaty, containing vegetable impressions, and passing gradually into 



4. Shale and sandstone, alternating in bands, and forming another projecting terrace perhaps 



two hundred and fifty feet thick. Few fossils were observed in these beds, but much car- 

 bonaceous matter, and some obscure impressions of vegetables. 



5. A lower calcareous zone, the upper beds of which (twenty or thirty feet thick) consist of caU 



ciferous sandstone, containing small nodules of indurated limestone grit with fossils, and 

 having thin layers of shale with belemnites. The belemnites are also found in subordinate 

 sandy beds. 



6. Shale, dark blue, much more unctuous than the shale No. 4, containing many fossils of the 



inferior oolite, as belemnites, terebratula:, &c., with small blue calcareous concretions, 

 which mark the dip of the strata. 



7. Base of cliflf. Sandstone of inferior oolite with very large concretionary nodules of limestone, 



containing the pecten aequivalvis, ammonites Murchisonae, &c., — thirty feet exposed, shale of 

 lias appearing below. 



