348 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



Garvock (900 feet high), an outlier of the Grampians, at the foot 

 of which we stand. The upthrust here shows the purple slate as 

 the backbone or oldest formation, with the more recent rocks up 

 to the fossil-bearing " Old Red," uplifted and exposed. 



Thus we become acquainted with several strata above the 

 ancient sandstone of the Burn section. First, we have a ferrugin- 

 ous shale, which covers the floor of the valley of the Mearns ; after 

 this, red rock may be seen on Bervie river, a fine-grained, hard, 

 pinky sandstone \ then a gray slate, of a few feet in thickness. On 

 the south-east side of Garvock, on the way to Johnshaven, one 

 passes over the ancient red sandstone ; while nearer to Montrose 

 is the White Craig Quarry, at Warburton, with its fossil worm- 

 burrows in the white hardened sandstone or quartzite. Farther 

 round the south side of Garvock base, at Morphie Den, the above 

 White Quartzite is again met with ; and above it, in a dark gray 

 fucoid-containing slate, was found, in 1856, by the writer, the 

 fossil il Kampecaris" named at the Glasgow meeting of the British 

 Association, Forfarensis (which ought to have been Kincardinensis). 

 The White Quartzite is again seen at Buddon, with limestone 

 above it. Above the white rock at Morphie Den, the succeeding 

 strata are uncertain ; but, higher up the Den, raised by the up- 

 heaval of the hill, is the " Old Red," indicated by its fossils — 

 ("Cephalaspis," "Acanthoses Mitchelli" "Pterygotus" "Parka," dec.) 



Trap in large development has rendered the geology of Garvock 

 and Buddon difficult ; but it can be well observed at Newton, 

 Marykirk, that the Burn formations are distinctly traceable in con- 

 tinuation upon Garvock, and further, that the Great Conglomerate 

 along the south side of the Grampians when it dips is nowhere 

 else again to be seen excepting on Garvock, and that it and the 

 ancient sandstone above it are one and the same with the con- 

 glomerates and Torridon sandstone of the W T est Highlands, with 

 which they at one period' clasped hands. 



We have, in fact, on the east side of the Grampians, the Nor- 

 mal lithology, while on the other side, the Abnormal is exhibited 

 in the deposit of the sandstone upon the upturned weathered edge 

 of the Archaean Gneiss. Durness, with its abnormal formations, 

 gave rise, in 1859, and since, to much controversy which might 

 have been more profitably expended upon the normal strata of 

 the Grampian Mountains on this side. 



The vigorous work done by the American Survey seems to evi- 



