384 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Bibliography. 



I shall confine this bibliographical notice to works bearing 

 distinctly on the district around Moffat. Hugh Miller has 

 given, in a paper read to this Society in 1852, an admirable 

 history of the Silurian rocks of the south of Scotland. 



In the Old Statistical Account of the parish (1792), the Rev. 

 Alexander Brown, the immediate successor of Dr Walker, 

 describes the soils, and alludes to some of the economical pro- 

 ducts of the parish. 



In 1775 Annandale was searched for coal by Mr JBurrel, 

 but the account of his survey remains in the possession of the 

 county unpublished. 



In 1800 the county gentlemen were anxious to obtain a 

 geological description to accompany their excellent county 

 map, and for this purpose applied to Robert Jameson, then a 

 favourite student of Dr Walker's, to survey the county. He 

 was on the eve of setting out for Germany, and consequently 

 declined at that time to undertake what he afterwards in 1805, 

 on a renewed application, performed. In the meantime, 

 General Dirom prepared some sections of the county, from 

 published data, which were engraved on the map ; and the 

 Messrs Busby, two coal-viewers from Northumberland, were 

 engaged to survey the county. Their journal was published 

 as a supplement to Dr Singer's " Agriculture of Dumfries- 

 shire," 1812. It shows them to have been shrewd men, with 

 quick eyes and sound judgments- They were not led astray 

 by the dark shales to expect coal in the " primitive" rocks; 

 they searched in them for minerals and slate. They found no 

 certain indication of the former, but recommended a locality 

 in the Frenchland Burn as a likely locality for the latter. 

 They bored also for marl, but without success, at Calla Bank 

 and Loch House. 



Professor Jameson, in his " Mineralogical Account of Dum- 

 friesshire," 1805, first referred the predominant rocks of the 

 south of Scotland to their true position. Hutton, in his 

 " Theory of the Earth," considered them as primary strata, 

 but Jameson showed that they were members of Werner's 

 Transition Series. He gives an accurate account of the 

 mineralogical peculiarities of the rocks, but is entirely ignorant 



