398 



Prof. J. W. Judd. 



[Dec. 10, 



New Spynie Church, and a mile and a half still further to the south- 

 west than Findrassie, has yielded Hyperodapedon and another lizard 

 with a Dinosaur and a Dicynodont. 



The difference in mineral characters between the Triassic Sand- 

 stone on the northern side of the Quarry wood ridge and the Upper 

 Old Red Sandstone on its southern face is certainly not a very 

 striking or well-marked one. But this is a circumstance at which no 

 geologist who is in the habit of studying the Old and the New Red 

 Sandstone will be surprised. Nevertheless, a careful study of the two 

 sets of rocks shows that there are appreciable differences between them, 

 and, as a matter of fact, practised observers like Dr. Gordon seldom 

 find any real difficulty in pronouncing at a glance whether any par- 

 ticular mass of building-stone belongs to the " reptiliferous " or the 

 " holoptychian " formation. It must be admitted, however, that occa- 

 sionally the pale-pink Old-Red rock assumes a nearly white colour, 

 while the white or yellow " reptiliferous " rocks locally acquire reddish 

 tints, undistinguishable from those of the "holoptychian" sandstone. 



In both the coast ridge and the Quarrywood ridge, as was well 

 pointed out by Dr. Gor.don, the Reptiliferous Sandstone is seen to be 

 covered by a very peculiar and easily-recognisable deposit, known as 

 the " Cherty rock of Stotfield." It has been frequently suggested 

 that the preservation of these two sandstone ridges, and thus of the 

 whole peninsula between Burghead Bay and Spey Bay, was in all pro- 

 bability due to the presence of this remarkable rock, which offers such 

 resistance to the ordinary agents of denudation.* The rock consists 

 of a more or less intimate admixture of siliceous and calcareous mate- 

 rials, including also crystallised patches of galena, blende, and pyrites ; 

 it has yielded no trace of organic remains. Sir Roderick Murchison 

 compared the " Cherty rock of Stotfield " with the Cornstones of the 

 Old-Red rocks, with which, however, it has but little in common ; 

 and some confusion appears to have arisen from bands of true Corn- 

 stone, which occur in Upper Old Red Sandstone to the south of Elgin, 

 having been taken for the Cherty rock of the Trias. 



Professor Harkness, in 1864, was able to show that the positions in 

 which the Cherty rock and the Reptiliferous Sandstone occur in the 

 neighbourhood of Elgin are such as can only be explained by the 

 existence of great faults. At a later date, I showed how numerous are 

 the indications of disturbance in the district — evidence of tilting of 

 the beds, of actual contortion, and of fracture occurring in many of 

 the quarries. In the New Bishopmill Quarries, for example, the 

 effects of a fault, in throwing side by side beds of valuable freestone 

 and other sandstones unsuitable for building purposes, is very clearly 

 seen, and similar evidence is found all over the area where these beds 

 occur. On the north of the coast-ridge I have shown that beds of 

 * " Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc," vol. xx (1864), p. 424. 



