1885.] On the Reptiliferous Sandstone of Elgin. 399 



Inferior Oolite are seen faulted against the Trias of Stotfield,* and 

 the same is probably the, case also at Burghead. In the great 



Scars" or reefs which lie off this coast red sandstones are seen, and 

 I have been assured that scales of Holoptychius occur in them. If 

 this be true, then the whole of the Mesozoic strata, forming the 

 peninsula between Burghead Bay and Spey Bay, consists of rocks 

 which are actually let down by trough-faults and synclinal folds into 

 the midst of a tract of the Upper Old Red Sandstone. The presence 

 of such great lines of dislocation is unquestionable, and in the paper 

 referred to I have endeavoured by means of dotted lines to indicate 

 the approximate position of some of them. It must be remembered, 

 however, that in a country so deeply covered by drift as Northern 

 Morayshire, the working out of the relations of the rock-masses by 

 tracing their outcrops at the surface is an almost hopeless task. 



As throwing an entirely new light on the age and relations of the 

 Reptiliferous Sandstone of Elgin, I was able in the year 1873 to 

 ^how that strata identical in character with that deposit and with the 

 Cherty rock of Stotfield occur on the northern, as well as on the 

 southern side of the Moray Firth. At Dunrobin, in Sutherland, the 

 yellow sandstones are seen covered by the Cherty rock, and this in 

 turn is overlain in apparently conformable sequence by the various 

 members of the Lias and Oolite. The whole of the Mesozoic strata 

 of Sutherland are seen to be thrown by a great fault against the 

 Lower Old Red Sandstone and the Crystalline rocks of the Highlands. 



Although it is certain, however, that some of the cases of juxta- 

 position between the Old Red and the Triassic strata must be due to 

 faulting, yet there are reasons for believing that the latter strata 

 lie directly and unconformably upon the former. But, as was re- 

 marked by Dr. Gordon in 1877, " the district is so covered by drift 

 that no junction of the Holoptychian and the Reptiliferous strata has 

 been laid bare." 



It was therefore with the greatest interest that in the summer of 

 1884 I learned from that veteran geologist, whose important services 

 to science have extended over a period of more than half a century, 

 that the bones of reptiles had at last been detected in the same 

 quarry with the remains of Holoptychius. On repairing to Elgin I 

 received the greatest assistance in investigating the matter from Mr. 

 J. Gordon Phillips, the intelligent and energetic curator of the Elgin 

 Museum. 



It appears that about the beginning of 1882 an old stone-pit, known 

 as " the Millstone Quarry," and situated near the summit of the 

 Quarrywood ridge, immediately above the church of New Spynie, had 

 been reopened, and extensive excavations had since been carried od 

 there. The beds here present a somewhat similar character to those 

 * " Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc," vol. xxix (1873), p. 128, &c. 



