108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 8, 



of Oolitic, and not of Carboniferous age. ~No account of their re- 

 searches, however, appears to have been printed. 



In 1826 Mr. (afterwards Sir Roderick) Murchison visited the 

 county, and made that careful survey of the Jurassic strata in 

 Sutherland, Eoss, and Cromarty, to which reference has already 

 been made (Trans. Geol. Soc. 2nd ser. vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 293). 



In the following year (1827) Murchison returned to the Highlands 

 in company with Professor Sedgwick. On this occasion, the Secon- 

 dary rocks were reexamined, and the first detailed study made of the 

 Triassic rocks of Elginshire (Trans. Geol. Soc. 2nd ser. vol. ii. pt. 3, 

 p. 353, and vol. iii. pt. 1, p. 125). 



At this period Dr. Knight, of Aberdeen, had already detected the 

 fact of the existence of chalk-flints over a large area in the county of 

 Aberdeen ; and in a paper published in the Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Magazine in 1831, Mr. Christie called attention to the occurrence of 

 chalk-flints at Boyndie Bay, Banffshire. 



In 1832 appeared the first edition of the admirable ' Guide to the 

 Highlands ' by George and Peter Anderson, of Inverness, in which 

 some valuable geological observations are recorded. 



The same year Dr. Gordon, in a letter to Sir Roderick Murchison, 

 read before the Geological Society, gave the first notice of the existence 

 of a patch of Secondary rock in Morayshire at Linksfield, or Cutley 

 Hill, near Elgin (Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. i. p. 391). 



In the year 1835 the Highland and Agricultural Society published 

 a prize essay on the ' Geology of Morayshire,' the work of Mr. John 

 Martin. This work contains many valuable details connected with 

 our subject. In 1838 Dr. Malcolmson showed that the beds at 

 Linksfield presented remarkable resemblances in mineral characters 

 to the English Wealden and Purbeck, to which period he suggested 

 that they belonged. In the same year appeared his admirable essay 

 on the Old Red Sandstone of Morayshire, in which he treated of the 

 beds now placed both on palasontological and strati graphical grounds 

 in the Trias. 



Mr. R. Hay Cunningham's ' Geognosy of Sutherlandshire,' another 

 of the prize essays of the Highland and Agricultural Society, ap- 

 peared in 1839. In this work, however, which contains such an 

 admirable account of the Palasozoic rocks of the county, scarcely any 

 fresh facts are added with regard to the Secondary rocks. 



In 1842 appeared Mr. Duff's ' Sketch of the Geology of Moray,' in 

 whicb many valuable details are given concerning the rocks of that 

 county (which are now placed in the Trias), and also with regard to 

 the fragments of Jurassic rocks scattered over the county, which 

 are now proved to be transported masses included in the Boulder- 

 clay. 



Mr. Alexander Robertson, of Inverugie, laid before this Society, 

 in the years 1843 and 1846, admirable essays on the section below 

 the coal of Brora, showing that there were intercalated in the series 

 bands of freshwater shells, and insisting that, from the resemblance 

 of these strata to the "Wealden, they ought to be classed with that 

 formation (Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iv. p. 173, and Quart. Journ. Geol. 



