146 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
leave tlic best half in tlie bed, as the halves of the nodules arc generally rounded 
at the edges, and would easily pass as perfect nodules. 
Lign. 2. — Disjointed nodules, with the pieces Ijing apart in the rock. 
Grossing the river at Pochabers, and bearing a little to the left, we come to 
DiPPLE. The fishes from thence are now found in nodules scattered over the 
fields of the neighbourhood, the original bed discovered by Dr. Malcolm- 
son, about twenty-three years ago, being covered up with soil, and seem- 
ingly quite exhausted of its fossiliferoiis nodules. These nodules have a 
botryoidal form, and arc of a deep red colour ; tlie fossils are entirely in frag- 
ments, and very few. The rocks on the Dipple side of the Spey, seen from 
I'ochabers, near the bridge, are of a deep red colour, very hard, compact, and 
granular in texture, and much used in the neighbourhood for building-purposes. 
Gamrie is about eight miles from Banfl', and forty from Elgin, and is a rich 
locality in many species of fishes ; some of them, especially the Ptericldhi/s 
oblom/us, are there in a very good state of preservation. The Cheirolepis 
wagus is rather rare, and many of the nodules contain what seem to be 
coprolites. 
These nodules are extremely hard and difficult to open, and have the fibrous 
crystaUhie struetm-e at the edges more distinct than those at other places. 
They are of a brownish colour, the fishes as generally preserved being of a 
darker brown. These nodules are embedded in the same kind of laminated 
clayey marl, as in the other localities ; the bed containing them is situated 
about a quarter of a mile from the sea-coast. 
In many of the nodules the centre, instead of containing a fish, is filled with 
small rhomboidal crystals of cidcspar, also with a dark broism bituminous matter 
in a thin oily form. 
Dura Den is much more to the south than all the last-mentioned localities, 
being about two mUcs from Cupar, in Fifeshu-e, and is celebrated for its finely- 
preserved fishes, which are all different from those in the other fossiliferous 
deposits of the Old Red. Two new species have very lately been discovered 
there, the Pliutiei ojdeuron Andersoiiii and Gli/ptuli-cmns Kin/iairdii. 
Some of tiie slabs obtained from this locality contain a dozen or even twenty 
fishes, but these are almost entirely of one kind — Haiopti/chiiis Andersonii, a 
species which well exhibits the peculiar characters of the genus. One of the 
most interesting fish discovered here is the PampJirudes Andersoni, a fish much 
resembling the Pterkhiliytt. This sandstone is of a yellowish or greyish white 
colour, similar to the rock at Lossiemouth. 
Clasubinnie is nearly opposite to Newburgh, on the noith side of the Tay, 
and is the locality where that magnificent specimen of llic Ilolopti/chias nobi- 
lissimtis, in the British Museum, was found. Scales of Phijllolepis concentricus 
and Uolopti/chius Murc.lumii are also found here. The matrix is of a deep red, 
while the fossUs are of a whitish colour. 
The deposits of the Lower Old Red in the Orkneys and at Caithness are 
