TRIASSIC STRATA OF CUMBERLAND AND DUMFRIES. 353 



75 yards in thickness, which on the whole dips to the 

 S.S.E. at an angle of 18°, although by a small fault seen 

 on the east side of the river there is a steeper dip to the 



s.s.w. 



This sandstone, in its upper portion, presents no re- 

 markable characters, and differs in nothing from an or- 

 dinary carboniferous sandstone; but in its lowest part 

 there is a mottled bed of 14 inches in thickness full of 

 peroxide of iron and red clay, containing fossil wood and 

 coal-plants. The species of the latter are not easy of 

 recognition, with the exception of the Calamites approxi- 

 matus, of which I obtained a good specimen and some 

 fragments of Dadoxylon. The bed reminded me of a 

 similar one at Penton, described in the next section, of 

 which it is probably a continuation. In some of its cha- 

 racters it resembled the Whitehaven sandstone. Con- 

 siderable time was spent in searching for white-quartz 

 pebbles in it; but none were found, with the exception 

 of a small one of the size of a bean, which was met with, 

 not in, but only loose on the outside of the rock ; so its 

 occurrence there was not of much value. 



Proceeding up the river, some red shales, containing 

 Stigmaria ficoides and thin gritstones, reaching to about 

 30 yards in thickness, are seen. These are succeeded by 

 about 20 yards of red and purple-coloured shales and 

 clays, containing several bands of gritstone, two seams of 

 calcareous ironstone, and a bed of limestone 6 inches in 

 thickness. This latter stone has a porcelain-like fracture, 

 and is of mottled, purple, and cream colours. It contains 

 the Spirorbis carbonarius and a Cypris?, and cannot be 

 distinguished from the Ballochmoyle limestone described 

 by me in the upper coal-measures near Catrine in Ayrshire, 

 and the Ardwick and other limestones found in the same 

 position in England. From this limestone to the highest 

 carboniferous strata, previously described above the bridge. 



