OLD RED SANDSTONE OF WESTERN EUROPE. 439 
seems not impossible that fragments of some of the larger fishes long previously 
entombed in the nodules or flagstones of the older part of the system might 
have been reached during the denudation of these strata; and brought into the 
gravel banks of Seat Craig: | 
But as I have already indicated, no passage from the Scat Craig beds down- 
wards into strata, containing unquestionable Caithness flag fishes; has ever been 
made out, while on the contrary these beds pass upwards into undoubted Upper 
Old Red Sandstone, from which neither paleontologically nor stratigraphically 
does there appear to be the slightest reason to separate them. Let me now, 
however, endeavour to show that, as I have mentioned in connection with the 
areas respectively occupied by the upper conglomerates and sandstones and 
the Caithness flag series in Morayshire, these two members of the Old Red 
Sandstone lie unconformably upon each other: 
To the south of Elgin, as the observations of the Rev. Dr Gorpon* and the 
section of Sir R. Murcutsont clearly show, the crystalline schists are immediately 
overlaid by fossiliferous conglomerates (Scat Craig, &c:), which pass up into 
the yellow sandstones; conglomerates, and cornstones, of Elgin, containing 
Holoptychius and other Upper Old Red Sandstone fishes. There is no trace of 
the older ichthyolitic beds of the Spey, though to judge from the dip which 
these had when last seen at Dipple, they might have been expected to spread 
over the plain of Moray, and to flank the base of the hills. They are entirely 
overlapped by the younger series which runs up the valley of the Lossie, and 
éurving round the flanks of the Monaughty hill; where the Highland rocks pro- 
ject into the plain, ranges westwards into the valley of the Findhorn: If we may 
judge indeed from scattered patches of conglomerate and sandstone, these rocks 
must at one time have extended considerably further up some of the hollows 
than they do now. In the ravines of the Findhorn, a magnificent succession of 
cliffs has been cut through the upper yellow and red sandstones and con- 
glomerates down to the gneissose rocks on which they directly lie. Here again 
we find no trace of the presence of any intermediate zone between these two 
formations. Immediately to the east, however, in the Burn of Altyre, flaggy 
sandstones occur from which Lady Gorpon CummMinG obtained characteristic 
Caithness flag fishes.t It would appear, therefore, that on the east’ side of the 
6ld bay in which the Findhorn sandstones were deposited, a portion of the 
underlying series intervenes between these strata and the gneiss. 
Passing to the west of the Findhorn we obtain still further evidence to show 
an unconformability. Though on that river at Sluie the upper series lies directly 
ipon the gneéissose rocks; immediately to the west a great thickness of strata 
* «“ Edin. New: Phil. Journ.” new series x. p. 29, et seq. 
+ “Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.” xv. p. 424. 
} See Murcnison, “ Quart. Journ: Geol. Soc?’ xv. p. 423, 
