THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE CANONB1E COALFIELD. 873 



total thickness of strata amounting to about 3650 feet. No workable oil-shales occur 

 in the lowest part of this group till we reach the level of 800 feet beneath the 

 Burdiehouse Limestone, which is the position of the Pumpherston band. According to 

 Mr Cadell's computations the oil-shales appear on different horizons in a series of 

 strata whose vertical thickness is about 2750 feet, the highest band being the Raeburn 

 shale, about 450 feet beneath the Hurlet limestone.* 



It is obvious, therefore, that the oil-shale group as developed in Midlothian differs 

 in a marked degree from the higher part of the Calciferous Sandstone series found in 

 East Lothian. 



In East Fife the Calciferous Sandstone series has an exceptional development, with 

 special lithological and pakeontological characters, whicli have been admirably described 

 by Sir A. Geikie in his recent memoir on "The Geology of East Fife."t He calls 

 attention to the fact that in place of the widely separated marine platforms, with com- 

 paratively feAv fossils, to be found in the Lothians and Western Fife, there is a great 

 succession of marine bands crowded with organic remains, and alternating with numerous 

 coal-seams, which distinguishes the group in the East of Fife from any other equivalent 

 strata in Scotland, the total thickness amounting to about 4500 feet. 



Below the sandstones of Fife Ness, as Sir A. Geikie has pointed out, there emerges 

 a group of shales, clays, and thin seams of cementstone, resembling the Cementstone 

 group in other parts of Scotland, j This group passes downwards into a nodular corn- 

 stone, which may represent the band at the top of the Upper Old Red Sandstone. Next 

 in order come the Randerstone beds, composed of alternations of Spirorbis and lamelli- 

 branch limestones, sandstones, shales, with occasional fireclays, root beds and thin coals. 

 No purely marine bands occur in this estuarine subdivision, though such marine organisms 

 as Bellerophon, Rhynchonella and Orthoceras are met with. These are overlaid by the 

 Billowness sandstones, followed by alternations of impure oil-shales, sandstones, cyprid 

 limestones, with nineteen thin coals, and eventually by the ' : Encrinite bed," which forms 

 a marked horizon in the Calciferous Sandstone of East Fife. This impure limestone is 

 charged with corals, crinoids, polyzoa, brachiopods, including four species of Productus, 

 a fauna which is characteristic of the Carboniferous Limestone series. Above the 

 Encrinite limestone comes a succession of sandstones, shales, ironstones and thin coals, 

 near the top of which there are bands of limestone (Abden limestones), which contain a 

 typical marine fauna like that of the Hurlet and Hosies limestones. 



It is obvious that in the Calciferous Sandstone of the East of Fife there is a 

 striking departure from the type of strata which in Northumberland intervenes 

 between the P^ell sandstones and the Eelwell limestone. It is not improbable that 

 the " Encrinite bed " of Fife may be the equivalent of the crinoidal limestone at Cove, 

 near Cockburnspath. 



In central Scotland the Carboniferous Limestone series, as is well known, is represented 

 by a lower group containing marine limestones, sandstones, shales, fireclays and 



* Trans. Geol. Soc. Edin., vol. viii., part i., p. 136. 



t Memoirs of the Geol. Survey, " The Geology of East Fife," 1902, p. 71. J Ibid,, p. 121. 



