1873.] JTJDD THE SECONDARY ROCKS OF SCOTLAND. 139 



been worked on a very extensive scale, and subjected to tbe most 

 diligent search, has never yielded a trace of such fossils. Neither 

 has any trace of the reptilian scales or bones been found in any un- 

 doubtedly Old Red Sandstone beds. The Cherty Rock of Stotfield, 

 too, is admitted on all hands to differ greatly from any recognized 

 bed of cornstone, and strikingly from that which occurs in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood at Eoths in the parish of Birnie, and which 

 is of undoubted Old-Red- Sandstone age. 



But in a district which is so hopelessly sealed up from the inves- 

 tigations of the field-geologist by overwhelming masses of drift as 

 is that of Elgin, the generalizations founded on the examination of 

 a few exposures of rock, miles apart, lose all their weight, if it 

 should appear that the couatry has been subjected to great disloca- 

 tions. 



That the strata of the Elgin district have been thus broken up by 

 a series of fractures is, I think, quite indisputable. Indeed I be- 

 lieve that no one acquainted with the area will deny the exist- 

 ence of a number of great faults ranging E.K.E. and W.S.W., and 

 of cross fractures subordinate to these. In proof of this disturbed 

 condition of the strata I would briefly notice the following circum- 

 stances. 



1. The strata, when examined over the whole district, are found 

 to dip at various angles, and at some points, as the Clashack quarry, 

 are actually seen to be bent into great anticlinal folds. 



2. Even in the small exposures of the strata visible, as between 

 Burghead and Cummingstown and on the Eindhorn, as pointed out 

 by Professor Harkness*, and near Bishop-Mill as pointed out by 

 Mr. Symondsf, there are indications of the existence of faults. 



3. The repetition of strata which are unquestionably the same 

 and have a considerable dip, at distant points (as for example, in the 

 Spynie and Lossiemouth ridges, which are three miles apart), indi- 

 cates the existence of such disturbance. 



4. I may notice that Professor Harkness has pointed out the 

 existence of these great lines of faulting, and has indicated their 

 probable position. 



5. Dr. Gordon has noticed the existence of patches of Old Red 

 Sandstone lying at Pltiscarden and Rininver in the midst of the 

 Lower Silurian strata $, identified in the former locality by the re- 

 mains of fish, and in both by the marked mineral characters of the 

 beds ; and it seems to be impossible to account for the position of 

 these except by admitting that the whole district has been subjected 

 to great dislocation. 



Lastly, I have shown that strata, proved by the most unques- 

 tionable fossil evidence to be of as recent date as the Lower Oolite, 

 are found at Stotfield faulted against the older strata. The existence 

 of this fault was recognized by Professor Ramsay in 1859. 



The conclusion, to which I think all the facts which I have ad- 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xx. (1864) p. 432, fig. 2, p. 436, fig. 3. 

 t Edin. New Phil. Journ. New Ser. vol. xii. (1860) p. 97. 

 + Ibid. New Ser. vol. ix. (1859) p. 43. 



