in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 27? 



not of this country alone, but of every region in Europe. This 

 was followed by the exertions of a Hall and of a Playfair, who, 

 in their days, were towers of strength. The researches of these 

 philosophers, together with the important labours of some few of 

 their Neptunian competitors, which, though conducted upon er- 

 roneous and illogical principles, embodied invaluable facts, reflect 

 a high lustre on the active interval of Scottish geology, which has 

 prolonged itself to the date of the important writings of a Mac- 

 Culloch and a Boue'. If an interval of inertness has followed,. 

 Industry now promises to resume her sway. The exertions of the 

 Highland Society, conjoined with the late proceedings of the Bri- 

 tish Association of Science, severally shew, that the Genius of 

 Scottish Geology is awakening from his slumbers, like a giant re-, 

 freshed. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



The great extent to which my Memoir has reached upon the fresh-water lime- 

 stone of Burdiehouse, precludes me from doing any thing more than throwing into 

 the form of a Supplement, notices of other fresh-water limestones in the vicinity of 

 Edinburgh, brought before the Royal Society, although I possess materials for a de- 

 scription of them, almost sufficient to fill a volume. 



It was a desideratum of no little moment to learn, whether fresh-water limestones, 

 similar in their geological character to that of Burdiehouse, did not occur in other 

 localities of the coal formation of Scotland, or even elsewhere. 



Having this object in view, I did not content myself with merely visiting the 

 neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; I travelled at different intervals several hundred miles 

 over various districts of the Basins of the Forth, the Tay, and the Clyde, and have 

 even availed myself of the occasion which a journey to England afforded me of explor- 

 ing certain parts of Derbyshire, with the self same view. My labour has not been 

 directly, but indirectly successful. If I have not found these fresh-water limestones 

 so abundant as I expected them, I have still been enabled to assign to them a few 

 localities, and the acquisitions which I flatter myself it will be hereafter found I have 

 made to our knowledge of the general relations of the strata of the south of Scot- 

 land, conjoined with the discovery of a fresh- water bed of rather a different character, 

 but of an interest fully equalling that of Burdiehouse (I allude to the limestone of 

 Kirkton near Bathgate), far more than recompense me for toils which have been un- 

 remitted. 



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