390 REV. THOMAS BROWN ON THE MOUNTAIN LIMESTONE AND 
as the other rocks by the forces of elevation. A glance at the section from Petty- 
cur to Inverteil will show how the beds of trap and the other strata have been 
lifted together to the same angle of dip. Another example is still more instruc- 
tive. Not far from Queensferry there is, to the east of St David’s, a mass of tu- 
faceous trap, and south of St Andrews there is a mass of sedimentary strata both 
contorted in a similar way. They lie in the same position on the southern rise of 
the great basin—which leans against the axis of Aberdour on the one shore, and 
Babbet Ness on the other. The force which caused these convolutions must thus 
have acted over a wide stretch of country, and the traps and the sedimentary 
strata must have yielded alike to its power. 
Second, There are trap rocks evidently intrusive, and of subsequent formation, 
containing as they do fragments of the other strata. Every Edinburgh geologist 
knows well the Basalts, Tufas, and Amygdaloids of the coast from Pettycur to In-- 
verteil. In the Huttonian and Wernerian controversy this western series was the 
stronghold of the Wernerians. It seems strange that their adversaries did not 
claim the Elie side, where the intrusive traps may be studied to singular advantage.* 
Perhaps the most common appearance resembles that at Edinburgh Castle—the 
sedimentary strata at the point of contact being fractured and bent downwards; 
but there is this difference, that the phenomena can be studied not in section, as 
at the Castle, but amid the bared rocks of the coast they are laid open as on a 
ground plan. 
Whether these intrusive traps had anything to do with the elevation of the 
other strata seems extremely doubtful. For the most part they appear to pene- 
trate the mass much as a musket bullet does a pane of glass, fracturing the por- 
tions in immediate contact, but leaving the general plane of the beds unchanged. 
A single example near Kinghorn is the only instance of what seems elevation re- 
sulting from the intrusion of trap. That some deep-seated force of elevation has 
acted over the district is indeed obvious. Starting at Fife Ness, we can trace the 
long, rolling undulations of the strata, as if lifted over the crests and sinking into 
the troughs of some gigantic sea. How vast the elevation must have been at first, 
and how immense the denuding agencies by which all was subsequently planed 
down to its present level, may be seen from the dotted line showing the supposed 
level of the bed L, itself very far below the coal-fields. I have seen, however, no 
* It is not intended in this or the following statements to advance any theory as to the formation of _ 
these rocks, the term intrusive being merely used to indicate that the previously formed sedimentary 
strata must have been consolidated and fractured before these traps could have come into their pre- 
sent position, While on the west the two kinds of rock lie for the most part conformably inter- 
stratified, it seemed deserving of notice that on the east side of the basin, when they come into contact, 
there are in most cases clear traces of convulsion. A geologist holding extreme Huttonian or ex- 
treme Wernerian opinions might easily enough find on these shores not a few facts in support of his 
favourite views on either side, but there are still considerable difficulties in the way of any theory 
which shall explain and harmonise all the phenomena. 

