412 



FOSSIL REPTILE OF OLD RED SANDSTONE. [Ch. XXVL 



c. 



Fiff. 536. 



Yellow saudstone, with some bands of white sandstone. 

 Red shale, sandstone with cornstone, and at the base a conglomer- 

 ate (Nos. 1, 2, & 3 Section, p. 48). 

 Roofing and paving stone, highly micaceous, and containing a sligh 

 admixture of carbonate of lime (No. 4, p. 48). 



The upper member, or yellow sandstone, A, is seen at Dura Den, near 

 Cupar, in Fife, immediately underlying the coal. It consists of a yellovr 

 sandstone in which fish of the genera Pterichtlujs (for genus see fig. 550), 

 Famphractus^ Ghjptopomiis^ Holoptychhis^ and others abound. 



On the south side of the Moray Firth, near Elgin, certain yellow 

 and white sandstones were classed long since by Professor Sedgwick 

 and Sir R. Murchison as the uppermost beds of the " Old Red ;" and 

 they are generally regarded as the equivalent of the Yellow Sandstone 

 of Fife above alluded to. They contain large rhomocidal scales of a 

 fish called by Agassiz Stagonolepis JRobertsoni, and referred by him to 

 the Dipterian family. This family, ob- 

 serves Mr. Hugh Miller, is emphati- 

 cally characteristic of the Old Red 

 Sandstone. The scales of this Sta- 

 gonolepis^ the only parts of the species 

 yet known, are so like those of Glyp- 

 topomus in form and pattern that they 

 may possibly prove to be referable to 

 the same genus. The Glyptopomiis, as 

 we have seen, is found in the yellow 

 sandstone of Dura Den in Fife, and the 

 genus has not hitherto been met with 

 in any formation except the Devonian. 



The light-colored sandstone of 

 Morayshire passes down into a con- 

 formable series of strata, which are 

 full of undoubted " Old Red" fossils. 

 I have dwelt thus particularly on the 

 age of this rock, because it has yielded 

 recently (1851) the bones of a reptile, 

 the first and only memorials of that 

 class yet discovered in a stratum of 

 such high antiquity. This fossil was 

 obtained by Mr. Patrick Duft', author 

 of a " Sketch of the Geology of 

 Morayshire," from a quarry at Cum- 

 mingstone, near Elgin. The skeleton 

 represented in the annexed figure 

 (fig. 536), is 4i inches in length, but 

 part of the tail is concealed in the 

 rock ; and, if the whole were visible, 

 it might be more than 6 inches long. 



Telerpeion Elglnense. 

 Natural size. 



(Mantell.) 



Reptile in the Old Eed Sftndstone, from 

 near Elgin, Morayshire. 



