BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 
497 
Towns, the labours of the Committee for obtaining the Uniformity of Weights and 
Measures, with remarks on the services of science to the State, conclude this 
luminous review of physical science in its ever memorable progress during the past 
two centuries. 
British Association. — The papers read by the Rev. W. Norwood, Dr. Revan, and 
the Rev. F. F. Statham h.ave been forwarded to us for publication in this Magazine, 
and will appear in our pages. Sir R. I. Murchison has also very kindly cau-ed an 
abstract of his paper to be forwarded to us ; and we have to acknowledge similar 
courtesies from the Rev. E. TroUope, Mr. Page, Mr. S. Baines, and Mr. J. Yates; 
and more are promised from other gentlemen who attended the meeting. 
Geology of Scotland — Meeting of tiik British Associatiom, 1858, (Con- 
tinued). — Sir Roderick I. Murchison, the Director-General of the Geological 
Survey, laid before the Geological Section " The results of his researches among 
the Older Rocks of the Scottish Highlands." He commenced his observations by 
indicating the various steps which had been made in developing the geological 
structure of Scotland, from the days of Hutton and Playfair through those of 
Jameson and M'CuUoch, to the state in which the subject was advanced a few 
years ago by the proofs of the existence of considerable numbers of organic remains 
of Silurian age in the southern Scottish counties, wliich, from the wild and hilly 
outline of most of them, have been termed the " Southern Highlands." This was 
the first great step made in the reform of Scottish classification ; and for proofs 
of this, he referred chiefly to a memoir by Professor J. Nicol, in the " Journal of 
the Geological Society," and to his own memoir "On Ayrshire and the adjoining 
Counties." He then went on with a sketch of the knowledge progressively acquired 
respecting the structure of the North Highlands, pointing out that, besides what 
might be termed a lithological and mineral description of the oldest rocks, little 
or nothing had been effected in determining their true relative order of super- 
position — still less the identification of their diflterent members by the evidence 
of fossil organic remains. For example, red conglomerates of different tracts, now 
known to be of various ages, had formerly been merged with the " Old Red Sand- 
stone." 
Passing over the presence of masses of Oolitic or Jurassic age (Brora, &c.), vrhich 
he had formerly described in a memoir published in the " Transactions of the 
Geological Society," he showed to what extent Professor Sedgwick and himself 
had, thirty-one years ago, ascertained an ascending order from gneiss, covered 
by quartz-rocks with limestone, into overlying quartzose, micaceous, and other 
crystalline rocks, some of which have a gneissose character. They had also 
observed what they supposed to be an associated formation of red grit and sand- 
stone ; but the exact relations of this last to the crystalline rocks was not ascer- 
tained, owing to bad weather. In the meantime they, as well as all subse- 
quent geologists, had erred in believing that the great and lofty masses of purple 
and red conglomerate of the western coast were of the same age as those on the 
east, and therefore " Old Red Sandstone." In addition to the valuable researches 
of Mr. Cunningham, the observations which the author made in the summer of 
1855, when accompanied by Professor James Nicol, were communicated to the 
Geological Section at their last meeting at Glasgow ; and to the abstract of that 
memoir, as published in the volume of the '• Transactions," he referred, to indicate 
the then state of knowledge, and to prove the existence of a lower gneiss, clearly 
superposed by a younger series of crystalline rocks, as seen in sections from 
N.W. to S.B. across Sutherland, Caithness, Ross, Inverness, &c. The great 
feature, indepen lent of the order of superposition, which has given to some of 
these lower rocks their most distinctive character, is the discovery by Mr. C. 
Peach, in the crystalline limestone subordinate to the quartz-rocks, of certain 
organic remains, which even at the Glasgow meeting he had affirmed (on the 
authority of Mr. Salter) to be of Lower Silurian age. He was indeed convinced, 
from the physical position of the masses alone, and their inferiority to the great 
and diversified series of Old Red or Devonian age of the east coast, that such was 
the epoch of their accumulation. Now, although he had also observed, in com- 
pany with Mr. Nicol, the clear interposition of a great mass of coarse red con- 
