356 MR. E.W. BINNEY ON CARBONIFEROUS, PERMIAN, AND 



boniferous strata (and, in the present state of our know- 

 ledge, most British geologists will probably consider that 

 such a line of demarcation is convenient), there is no better 

 evidence than the Spirorbis carbonarius and the Stigmaria 

 ficoides, in the form of organic remains, to identify car- 

 boniferous strata by. When the latter fossil, with its 

 rootlets, is found in shales, there can be no doubt that it 

 grew on the spot where it is met with, and that it has not 

 been drifted from a distance ; but this would not be the case 

 with a fragment of a specimen found in a sandstone, which 

 might have been brought by currents of water and left in 

 the locality where it is now found. 



Moat and Penton Section. Distance 3f miles. 



Commencing with the Moat sandstone, as in the last- 

 named section, and following the line of the North British 

 Railway, a good view of the red clays, containing slight 

 traces of veins of gypsum and thin bands of gritstone, is 

 seen in the cutting the greater part of the way up to Bid- 

 dings Junction Station. On the western bank of the Biver 

 Liddel, below the station, is seen a small anticlinal axis of 

 not more than 20 yards in length, which shows a bed of 

 breccia 4 feet in thickness, lying between two beds of red 

 sandstone. The breccia was composed of coal-measure 

 sandstones, with some few limestones, cemented together 

 by a red paste. 



In the railway- cutting near the bridge over the Liddel, 

 which carries the line to Canobie, the following section is 

 seen on the line and in the cliff on the river-bank, in the 

 descending order : namely, 



