76 FOSSIL ESTHERLE. 



In chapter ii (pages 15 — 19) of the 'Geology of Moray,' these shales are thus 

 described by Mr. Duff: 



" Immediately below the drift of sand and gravel, are found, in the Eastern Division 

 [of Moray], the Lower Purbeck beds of the Weald. These form the uppermost group 

 of the Oolitic series ; they are essentially freshwater or estuary : they consist of numerous 

 alternate beds of grey, green, blue, and almost black layers of highly tenacious clay, 

 between which are interposed at intervals double bands of coarse, light-green-coloured 

 limestone, having a plain earthy fracture, which yields, when burned, a yellow powder, 

 like peat-ashes. The uppermost limestone band is covered above by a layer of green 

 clay, and rests on a band of whitish slate-like slabs, which, when split, present septaria 

 of a greenish colour. To these succeed, in the descending order, beds of green and 

 blue clay ; next, a second band of limestone, which rests on a bed of dark-coloured shale, 

 containing slabs varying from one to three inches in thickness, of a dark-grey, sparkling, 

 highly crystallized limestone, on the upper surface of which are imbedded numerous bivalve 

 estuary shells ; and on the lower surface is a ferruginous crust, in which are found 

 numerous scales, teeth, and spines of extinct species of sharks and pike, and bones, &c, 

 of other animals. Through the substance also of these slabs are found fossils in abund- 

 ance. The shale which contains these fossihferous slabs appears to be composed, to the 

 thickness of three feet, of the shelly coverings of a minute crustacean, called Ci/pris 

 globom, and is a striking instance of the great length of time that must have elapsed ere 

 beds of such extent could have been formed from the exuviae of myriads of insects whose 

 individual size did not equal the head of a pin. Below this bed of shale are other layers 

 of various coloured clays ; the whole resting on the cornstone or limestone bed, belong- 

 ing to the sandstone formation to be afterwards noticed. But between the cornstone 

 and the Wealden beds, and pervading the surface of the lime-rock, is a bed of reddish 

 clay, or till, four feet thick, interjected, as it were, between the Wealden beds and the 



cornstone The Wealden beds occur at five different localities in the Eastern 



District [of Moray], viz., 1st, in the bank at the west end of the town of Elgin, on which 



the House of Maryhill stands. 2nd, at Linksfield 3rd, 



in a field to the westward of the House of Pitgaveny 4th, in a bank on 



which the ruins of the Castle of Spynie are situated ; and 5th, in a field a little westward 



of Waukmill But the most interesting locality is at Linksfield, where a 



series of beds, forty feet in thickness, has been cut down and removed, in order to get at 

 the limestone below. . . . . The provincial name of these beds is, ' The Cutley 

 Clay.' . . . . . We owe the identification of the Wealden beds of Moray with 

 those of Sussex, to Dr. John Malcolmson, of India." 



The fossils of these shales and limestone bands of Linksfield are stated by Mr. Duff 

 to be — 



Teeth, scales, and dorsal spines of Hybodus {H. Lawsoni, Duff). Teeth and scales 



