268 SILURIA. [Chap. XI. 
mass would leave these two deposits of such widely different age in similar 
apposition*. Some such operation must have taken place when the Old 
Eed Sandstone and its Ichthyolites, lying in an undisturbed and horizontal 
position, was covered after a long interval by the youngest of the Triassic 
deposits, and so remained until an elevation took place which raised up 
the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic deposits together to the same angle of inclina- 
tion, and subjected the whole of these masses to the same flexures, followed, 
doubtless, in after times by great breaks and denudations. 
As I do not profess to describe in this work any Secondary or Tertiary 
rocks, though they will be alluded to in the concluding Chapter in taking 
a general view of geological succession, I have withdrawn from this edition 
the woodcut of the Telerpeton — and the more willingly as a much more 
perfect specimen oi that Reptile has recently been found than that which 
was figured. I have now only to refer my readers to the complete account 
of these Elgin Reptiles of the Tipper Triassic or Keuper age, which, in 
completing his former description of them, as partially cited in my last 
edition, will shortly be given by Professor Huxley in the Memoirs of the 
Geological Survey of Great Britain. 
Plants of the Old Bed Sandstone. — The most marked addition, of late 
years, to the known fossils of the Old Red Sandstone of the North of Scot- 
land, consists of various Plants. Even as late as the year 1854 I could 
allude to only one unquestionable Land Plant as having been found 
in this formation, by Hugh Miller, and described by him as a part of a 
Coniferous Treef . The same author had afterwards brought to the notice 
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1855, several 
of these fossil Plants, which have since been published in his posthumous 
work the ' Testimony of the Rocks.' Most of these have been there referred 
to Tree Perns, and illustrated in that work by woodcuts 
Living at Wick, in the central portion of the Caithness flags, Mr. Charles 
Peach laboured incessantly in that locality to discover organic remains, and 
succeeded in disentangling certain fossil vegetables (as well as many Ich- 
thyolites) from these hard rocks. The Plants are all clearly of terrestrial 
origin, and are of the same species as those which have been found in the 
Orkneys by Dr. Hamilton, and at Thurso by Mr. John Miller and the late 
Mr. Robert Dick §, who have collected many excellent specimens near that 
town, some of which are figured below. 
* See also Dr. Bigsby's suggestive memoir ' On they never can be accurately defined until a cor- 
Missing Sedimentary Formations,' in the Quart, rect map of the county be executed, it being a 
Journ. G-eol. Soc. vol. xx. p. 198. melancholy fact that, though very easily capable 
t See 'Footprints of the Creator,' p. 198. of examination owing to the slight elevation of 
I See Miller's ' Testimony of the Eocks,' pp. 24, the greater part of the county, Caithness is pro- 
432, &c. bably the worst-mapped county in Scotland, or 
$ During my last researches with Mr. Peach, rather it possesses no map. Alas ! whilst these 
I received, indeed, much valuable information from pages are printing, I have to record the death of 
both of those explorers. Mr. Kobert Dick directed this remarkable man. Bobert Dick was unques- 
my notice to the presence of numerous powerful tionably gifted with genius, and possessed of great 
fractures and dislocations in the flagstones ranging original strength of mind. That he had a strong 
over Caithness, and which to the superficial ob- poetic verve was proved by his having purchased 
server seem to lie simply in undulations. But to tine editions of the works of Burns, Scott, Byron, 
whatever extent these dislocations have occurred, and other poets out of his scanty learnings ; for he 
