J. W. JUDD ON THE SECONDAEY KOCKS OP SCOTLAND. 665 



memoir. Although Murchison appears only to have visited a few of 

 the more conspicuous and accessible of the sections described by 

 Macculloch, yet his application to the beds in question of the prin- 

 ciple of identifying them with those of other districts by a compari- 

 son of their organic remains led him to some very important and 

 interesting conclusions. Thus, in addition to the recognition of the 

 Liassic beds already made by Macculloch, Murchison was able to 

 define the existence of several members of the Lower Oolites, and to 

 compare their fossils with those of well-known formations in Eng- 

 land. His identification of certain Scottish strata with the English 

 Cornbrash and Wealden respectively may be excused on the ground 

 of the imperfection of paheontological knowledge at the time when 

 he wrote ; but the same apology can scarcely be made for the con- 

 fusion into which he fell with regard to the Middle Lias and Lower 

 Oolite, or for his failure to recognize the true age of certain other 

 fossiliferous rocks that came under his notice. Short, however, and 

 somewhat superficial as were Murchison's researches in the district, 

 he deserves to rank, on account of the excellence of the methods he 

 introduced into the study of the district, as second only to Macculloch 

 himself among the investigators of Hebridean geology. 



With the exception of the examination of the Secondary strata in 

 the Island of Eigg by Hay Cunningham*, Hugh Miller f, and Pro- 

 fessors Geikie and Young J, the subsequent work which has been 

 done in the elucidation of the Jurassic rocks of the Western High- 

 lands has consisted in the re- examination by more competent palae- 

 ontologists of the sections to which Murchison had called the atten- 

 tion of geologists by his important discoveries. 



In 1851 Prof. Edward Eorbes visited Loch Staffin and showed by 

 the fossils which he obtained that the freshwater beds there could 

 not be of Wealden age as suggested by Murchison§. 



In 1858 Dr. Thomas Wright, by the study of a series of fossils 

 collected by Professor Geikie in the district of Strath in Skye, was 

 enabled to speak with much more exactness as to the particular sub- 

 divisions of the Lower and Middle Lias which are there exhibited ||. 



In 1862, Messrs. Davidson and Etheridge, in like manner, exa- 

 mined a series of fossils collected by Captain E. J. Bedford, K.N., 

 from the Middle Lias at Carsaig Bay, in the Island of Mull, during 

 the survey of the coasts of that district for the Admiralty %. 



Still more recently Professor Tate has studied carefully the series 

 of fossils collected during several years by the indefatigable geologist 

 Dr. Bryce, who has so recently sacrificed his life in the prosecution 

 of his favourite studies**. As the collections submitted to Professor 

 Tate were very carefully made, and he had, moreover, the opportu- 

 nity of studying the sections themselves, his identifications of the 



* Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, vol. viii. 



t See his ' Cruise of the ' Betsy,' ' and .other works, in which many valuable 

 observations on this island are recorded. 



$ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. p. 288. 



§ Ibid. vol. vii. p. 104. || Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 24, 



«[[ The Geologist, vol. v. p. 443. 



** Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxix. (1873) p. 317. 



