250 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society 
THE OIL-SHALE GRoUP IN EAST FIFE. 
The rocks which represent this group are nowhere better displayed than 
on the coast of East Fife. Thanks to the splendid work of the late J. W. 
Kirkby the best and most continuous section, viz., that exposed on the shore 
between Pittenweem and Anstruther, has been minutely studied and recorded 
in great detail. The results of his work were generously handed over to the 
Geological Survey, and published by Sir Archibald Geikie in his account of 
the Geology of East Fife. 
In Mr Kirkby’s detailed section, Bed No. 52 may be taken as the top of the 
Oil-Shale group, while Bed 648—the Billow Ness Sandstone— may be regarded 
as the equivalent of the Granton Sandstone, the base of the group. ‘The 
measured section thus shows a thickness of nearly 3000 feet of strata. Beds 
534-536, lying about 220 feet above the base, may be considered to represent 
the Burdiehouse Limestone, but this is the only horizon that can with any 
degree of certainty be correlated with those of the Lothian basin. 
Among the rocks which occupy the shore between Billow Ness and Bed 
536, there are several occurrences of entomostracan limestone of Burdiehouse 
type which yield remains of the familiar fish fauna of the oil-shales, but 
there are also many more evidences of beds bearing estuarine lamellibranchs. 
In addition there are about ten coal seams, each sitting upon its fireclay with 
rootlets, marking at least so many recurrences of land conditions. Above the 
Burdiehouse Limestone a similar type of sediment is met with, denoting a 
constant alternation of land surfaces, marked by thin coals and fireclays, and 
estuarine conditions shown by shales and limestones containing an estuarine 
or marine fauna. At 295 feet above the Burdiehouse Limestone occurs Bed 
No. 506, named by the Rev. Thomas Brown the “ Encrinite Bed,” which 
contains a considerable number of clear-water marine forms—hinged 
brachiopods, crinoids, and junciform Lithostrotion—showing that the bed 
is within Vaughan’s zone of Dibunophyllum. In the next 1826 feet 
of strata, there are sixteen coal seams and one parrot coal. There is an 
almost complete absence of shales and limestones with marine and estuarine 
forms, and the conditions of deposit seem to be like that_of the Edge Coals. 
Although the Abden Limestones have been included in the Calciferous 
Sandstone series by the Geological Survey, they may be much more naturally 
classed with the overlying Carboniferous Limestones, the conditions of their 
deposit being identical with those of the Lower Limestone Group. 
East LOruian. 
The conditions of deposit during the Oil-Shale group in East Lothian are 
much like those of Hast Fife, showing that the area was under the same 
