144 
THE GEOI.Or.rST. 
some of your rciidcrs will be able to account in some measure for the cireum- 
staiice that such fishes with very miiuitc scales should be so much distorted, 
while those with larger scales arc not so generally distorted, the only exception 
being the Gli/pfolrpi^. This fish, with larger scales than most of the fishes of 
the Old Red, is often found greatly distorted. In the Acunthodcs pusillus 
the head and tail are generally contiguous ; sometimes the fish looks as if tied 
in a knot, and often as though in one roundish mass it had been crushed end- 
ways. Some of the other species in similar manner have their spiues protrud- 
ing in all directions ai-ound. Such examjiles are not peculiar to this locality, 
but are also found in other places. Some of the magnificent specimens in 
Lady Gordon Cumming's collection contain two or three PtericJdhi/s on one 
slab. Of the Pterirhthj/a there are many species found here, some in a splendid 
state of preservation, perhaps superior to those from any other place whatever. 
Elgin. — About nine miles from Elgin is Nairn, which is the best place to 
stop at while visiting the Old Red Sandstone beds in the vicinity. Scat Crag 
being about four miles distant to the south. I first went there. This locality 
is well known for its large variety of interesting fossil remains, although 
generally these are found in fragments. The matrix is of an extremely loose 
and friable conglomerate of very coarse sand and pebbles ; the fossils (for the 
most part detached scales, plates and portions of plates and teeth, &c., of 
various species) are very plentiful, but the greatest possible care is requisite 
in obtaimng them perfect from the matrix, the fossils being as friable as the 
conglomerate m which they occur, often crumbling in the hand with the 
slightest touch. Large scales of Holopti/ctiiits (jiganteun, &c., are to be 
obtained here, nearly four inches in diameter, as are occasionally pieces of 
jaws of Botliriolepis, &c., and many interesting portions of bones, supposed to 
nave belonged to Pterichflij/s major. It has been reconmiended, as a means 
of preserving these fossils from falling to pieces, to let the specimens remain 
a short time m gelatine, and then carefully to dry them. 
In the Elgin Museum are some very fine specimens from this locality, and a 
very good collection of Old Red fossils. Patrick Dulf, Esq., of Elgin, has also 
a beautiful collection from this neighbourhood. 
At FiNDRASSiE, about a mile from Spynie, and two and a-half from Elgin, 
scales, scutes, and bones of Staf/oiwlepix, &c., are found. This quarry is 
not worked now, but good specmiens may yet be obtained from amongst the 
heajos of rubbish lying about. 
The hill of Spynie is about two miles from Elgin, and is a huge mass of 
sandstone. It is the place where the \inique specimen of Telopeton Elginense 
was discovered, no other specimen of this reptile havmg been found. 
At Sluie, on the Eindhoru, a few miles from Elgin, many fine specimens 
have been found, such as scales, teeth, plates, &c., of the several species found 
at Nau-n, Scatcrag, &c. : these also are in detached fragments. Some very 
fine teeth of fishes of large size have been discovered at this locality, but are 
extremely rare. 
About seven miles north of Elgin is the Masonhaugii-quakry, a place 
famous for the footprints of animals supposed to be reptilian. Numbers of 
slabs are to be found with such impressions, some of them small, about two 
inches in length, with about an eight or nine inches stride between them ; others, 
again, are of gigantic size, some impressions being fifteen mches in length, and 
ten in breadth, and exhibiting a stride of fully five feet. This is the oiily place 
in Scot laud -n here tliese footprints are found. 
LossiEJKJUTii is about six miles north of Elgin ; the quarries there present 
a light greyish white and yellowish stone, precisely the same in texture and 
colour as the rock at Dura Den, but containing only, as far as has yet been dis- 
covered, bones and scutes of Sfagonolepia and Hyperodapedon. As some 
