354 THE GEOLOGIST. 



ED B out-crop. Surface C 



A. Hole containing the frog', B. to C. Extent of surface shown in Mr. Ramsay's sketch. B. to E. 

 Continuation of surface to show outcrop ot "parting" represented by the added dotted line D. F. 



1. Little splint coal. 2. Rough coal ; several beds of coal, shale, freestone intervening ; also a seam 

 of ironstone. 3. Main coal, with freestone rock intervening. 4, Little splint coal, under which freestone 

 pavement, in which the hole A occuired. This hole was 10 inches long, by about 3 inches wide, o, 6, 

 7, 8. Seams of coal and various other strata below the freestone in which the frog was found. 

 Distances— height from A to surface C B 90 yards. From A to D about 400 yards. From A to the 

 coal-seam No. 4 about 2 feet. 



In the diagram given above, whicli has been faithfully reduced from the original 

 sketch forwarded to us, we have dded the dotted line D. F. Now, we accept 

 the statement of Mr. Ramsay that there were no fissures or "cutters" of a 

 vertical character; hut we know that forty -two feet of rock could not exist with- 

 out many intervening planes of bedding ; and looking at the lengthened form of 

 the cavity, it appeared to us, at the first glance, to lie in one of the planes of 

 bedding, and on drawing the dotted line D. F. this becomes prominently e\ddent. 

 This line of bedding will outcrop beyond B. at the surface, at a point we 

 will call D. Now, springs and the water of rain-falls constantly percolate 

 along these lines of bedding ; and, although it would be very difficult to get frog- 

 spawn down vertically into such a cavity as A, it would be very easy to do so along 

 the line of bedding D. F., and it seems to us that this is the easiest and most natural 

 explanation. At all events, if this be not the right explanation, the frog was a 

 recent one ; and as an animal of recent form cannot be co-eval with the coal-rock, 

 we must still search among natural causes for the solution. 



Geology of the Noeth Staffoedshire Coal-fields. — "Sie, — For the 

 information of your correspondent in the June number of the Geologist, I beg 

 to inform him that in addition to the coloured maps, the Government Geological 

 Survey has just published two sheets of Horizontal Sections (Nos. 41 and 42), 

 across the North Staffordshire Coal-field, accompanied by short explanatory 

 memoirs, which may be had either with, or without, the sheets of sections. — E. H. 



Cuttings on the Naien and Keith Railway. — The railway between Nairn 

 and Keith, establishing through communication from Inverness to London, has just 

 been completed, and the locomotive, for the first time, has crossed the Spey, 

 and inaugurated a new era in the Highlands. The following description has 

 been taken from the Inverness Courier : — " With regard to the district through 

 whi(!h the line of railway passes, it is a great improvement vipon that lying around 

 the present coach-road. The rise from Elgin is very soft and beautiful, giving a 

 fine idea of the fertility and amenity of Morayshii-e. The valley of the Spey is 

 also very attractive ; the hills are lofty and majestic ; the trees well-grown and 

 varied ; while such spots as the country-seat of Mr. Wharton Duff; give it that 

 aspect of wealth and comfort which we Highlanders have from the earliest times 

 associated with the "laigh land of Moray." From the Spey upwards to the 

 Ciorgo of Mulbeu, the radway parses throi^h a defile in which a wild Highland* 

 burn wintls from side to side, crossing repeatedly underneath the railway, and 



