The Scottish Naturalist. 



349 



dence the similarity of their " Potsdam " pre-palaeozoic sandstone 

 to that which we are considering. These vast strata occurring as 

 they do in America, Africa, and Scotland, will soon dispose of the 

 " Caledonian Lake theory " deposits of these formations, and will 

 show reason for a belief in the then existence of forces more 

 powerful than any with which the world is at present acquainted. 



The Burn section shows plainly that the horizontal floor was 

 uplifted by Mount Battock, the strata being shoved back to the 

 south-west below the " Old Red " proper of Turin and Carmylie. 



In the north, in 1859, Professor Nicol described a series com- 

 prising white quartzite with worm-burrows, gray fucoid-slate and 

 limestone, which he asserted correctly had been quite turned 

 over and reversed, this being one of the points of controversy 

 with Sir Roderick Murchison. Here, in this district, we believe 

 that we have the same contiguous formations in the worm-burrowed 

 white quartzite — the " Kampecaris" slate and the limestones > 

 and these are, so far as known, the earliest evidence of fossil life 

 that we possess. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION" IN ITS RELATION TO LOOAL 

 NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 



By Prof. JAMES W. H. TRAIL, A.M., M.D., F.L.S. 

 (Read before the E.S.U.N.S. in July, 1890.,) 



DURING the past three or four years the subject of 

 Provincial Museums has come prominently before the 

 British Association, and has been discussed at considerable length 

 in two Reports (1887 and 1888) of a Committee appointed to 

 inquire into the subject in the fullest manner. In addition to 

 this Dr. W. H. Flower gave the Presidential address to the 

 Association last year on Museums, taking as his text what they 

 are and what they ought to be, as regards alike the National and 

 the Provincial Museums of Natural History, using the term in its 

 wide sense. All who are interested (as all members of such 

 a union as this ought to be, in the advancement of whatever is 

 fitted to spread an intelligent interest through the general com- 

 munity in the wonders that so closely surround us), will find much 



