PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



45 



geology of this district ; and having given in detail an examination that he made 

 of the coast last autumn, he drew particular attention to the faithful and compre- 

 hensive descriptions of the Old Red district by Sedgmck and JMurchi&on in former 

 years, and showed that his owji observations quite comcide with the results of Sir 

 Roderick Murcliison's late coiTelation of the Gneissic, Cambrian, Silurian, and Old 

 Red strata of the coasts of Sutherland, Ross-shire, and Caithness. 



In conclusion, Mr. Miller pointed out that the Durness Limestone and the 

 Fossiliferous beds of Caithness were still open lields for careful and energetic 

 explorers. 



2. " On the Geological Structure of the North of Scotland. Part III. The 

 Sandstones of Morayshire, containing Reptilian Remains shown to belong to the 

 Uppermost Division of the Old Red Sandstone." By Sir Roderick 1. Murchison, 

 F.R.S., D.C.L., V.P.G.S., &c. 



Referring to his previous memoir for an account of the triple division of the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Caithness and the Orkney Islands, the author showed how the 

 chief member of the gTOup in those tracts diminished in its range southwards into 

 Ross-shire, and how, when traceable through Inverness and Nairn, it was scarcely 

 to be recognised in Morayshire, but reappeared with its characteristic ichthyoUtes 

 in Banffshire (Dipple, Tyhet, and Gamrie). 



He then prefaced his description of the ascending order of the strata belonging 

 to this gi'oup in Morayshhe by a sketch of the successive labours of geologists in 

 that tract ; pointing out how in 1828 the sandstones and cornstones of this tract 

 had been shown by Professor Sedgwick and himself to constitute, together with 

 the inferior Red Sandstone and Conglomerate, one natural geological assemljlage ; 

 that in 1839 the late Dr. ]Malcomeson made the important additional discovery of 

 fossil fishes, in conjunction with Lady Gordon Gumming, and also read a valuable 

 memoir on the structure of the tract, before the Geological Society, of which, to 

 his, the author's regTet, an abstract only had been published. (Proc. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. iii. p. 141.) 



Sir Roderick revisited the district in the autumn of 1840, and made sections in 

 the environs of Forres and Elgin. Subsequently, j\[r. P. Duft", of Elgin, pubhshed 

 a " Sketch of the Geology of Moray," with illustrative plates of fossil fishes, sec- 

 tions, and a geological map by Mr. John Martin ; and afterwards Mr. Alexander 

 Robertson threw much light upon the structure of the district, particularly as 

 regarded deposits younger than those under consideration. 



All these writers, as well as Sedgwick and himself, had gTOuped the yellow and 

 whitish-yellow sandstones of Elgin with the Old Retl Sandstone ; but the discovery 

 in them of the curious small reptile, the Telerpefon Ehjinense, described by Mantell 

 in 1851, from a specimen in Mr. P. Duff's collection, first occasioned doubts to 

 arise respecting the age of the deposit. Still the sections of Capt. Brickenden, 

 who sent that reptile up to London, proved that it had been found in a sandstone 

 which dipped under " Cornstone," and which passed do^Ti wards into the Old Red 

 series. Capt. Brickenden also sent to London natural impressions of footprints of 

 an apparently reptilian animal in a slab of a similar sandstone, -from the coast- 

 ridge extending from Burgh Head to Lossiemouth (Cummingston). 



Although adhering to his original view respecting the age of the sandstones, Sir 

 R. Murchison could not avoid having misgivings and doubts, in connnon with 

 many geologists, on account of tlie high grade of reptile to which the Telerpeton 

 belonged, and hence he revisited the tract, examining the critical points, in 

 company with his friend the Rev. G. Gordon, to whose zealous labours he owned 

 himself to be greatly indebted. 



In looking thi'ough the collections in the public museum of Elgin and of Mr. P. 

 Duff", he was much struck with the appearance of several undescribed fossils, 

 apparently belonging to Reptiles, which, by the liberality of their possessors, were, 

 at his request, sent up for inspection to the Museum of Practical Geology. He 

 was also much astonished at the state of preservation of a large bone (ischium), 

 apparently belonging to a reptile, found by Mr. Martin in the same sandstone- 

 quarries of Lossiemouth, in which the scales, or scutes, of the Stagonolepis 

 (described as belonging to a fish by Agassiz) had been found. On visiting these 

 quarries, Mr. G. Gordon and himself fortunately discovered other bones of the 

 same animal ; and these having been compared with the remains in the Elgin col- 



