J, W. JUDD ON THE SECONDARY ROCKS OF SCOTLAND. 661 



recognized about the beginning of the present century ; and at a 

 somewhat later date Macculloch pointed out the analogy of the 

 organic remains which he had found in some of these strata with 

 those of the English Lias. Beyond these identifications, however, 

 the Scottish geologists seem to have seldom desired to proceed ; and, 

 indeed, there was a very general disposition among them to regard 

 any attempts at classifying these strata, and correlating them with 

 the deposits of other districts, rather as idle and useless exercises of 

 ingenuity than as promoting the real progress of geological science. 



The teaching of William Smith, that strata may be identified by 

 their organic remains, has never found very ready or hearty accept- 

 ance north of the Tweed ; and as recently as 1839 we find so able a 

 geologist as Mr. Hay Cunningham giving expression to the views of 

 his countrymen (both those who, like himself, inclined to the Wer- 

 nerian doctrines and those who accepted the teachings of Hutton) 

 in the following terms : — 



" The stratified rocks which we have described as occurring in 

 Eigg are in many other of the Hebrides connected with strata which 

 differ from these, both in mineral and fossil characters. Little exa- 

 mination is required to convince that they form only one series, and 

 that to subdivide them into distinct groups is, since nature has 

 made no separation, a work of little utility. Though we could refer 

 every stratum to its analogue in any other country, say to those of 

 England, nothing would be gained ; for as there the several members 

 of the series, though they have distinct names attached to them, 

 belong to one great geognostical group, and present only insignifi- 

 cant mineral and fossil differences, so here the same is evident, and 

 entitles us to consider that there is no necessity to parcel out into 

 minute classes the rocks of a stratified deposit which expresses, 

 when its members are viewed collectively, a system which had been 

 formed uninterruptedly during a well-marked epoch of the world's 

 ancient history " *. 



Passages of similar import abound in the writings of Macculloch 

 and other countrymen of Hay Cunningham ; and it is evident to 

 every student of Scottish geology that this neglectful and even con- 

 temptuous attitude towards palseontological evidence has done not a 

 little towards retarding the progress of our knowledge of the geolo- 

 gical history of the northern portion of our island. 



To Murchison belongs the merit of having seen at a very early 

 date the groundless character of the prejudices of his countrymen 

 against the employment of palseontological evidence ; he visited the 

 Western Highlands in the years 1826-27, and succeeded in identi- 

 fying a number of the stratified deposits in the Hebrides with their 

 equivalent English deposits. Unfortunately Murchi son's acquaint- 

 ance with the Mesozoic formations and their characteristic fossils 

 was at that time very limited, and he in consequence fell into some 

 serious errors in his correlation of the Scottish strata ; and, what is 

 still more to be regretted, he altogether failed to recognize the true age 



* Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, vol. viii. p. 148, note. 



