BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 
499 
Caitlmcss and the Orkneys, with their numerous fossil fishes, constitute the 
central member of the Old Red series, the lower part of which is made up of 
powerful coiiglomerates and a very great thickness of thin-bedded red sand- 
stone, the whole resting on the crystalline rocks ; whilst the central flagstones 
are surmounted by other sandstones, rarely red, and usually of yellow colour, 
which occupy the promontories of Holy Head, Dunnet Head, &c. In quitting this 
part of his subject, Sir Roderick passed a warm eulogium on his countryman, Hugh 
Miller (both natives of the same tract), and stated that he had specially visited Cro- 
marty to see the progi-ess which was made in erecting a monument to his eminent and 
lamented friend ; and he had tlte gratification to announce, that when the British 
Associationmet next year at Aberdeen, the work would be completed ; the only point 
on which he earnestly insisted being, that the column, which is to stand on a green 
knoll behind the house in which Miller was born, should be one of true " Old Red 
Sandstone." In Morayshire Sir Roderick made transverse sections, in company 
with the Rev. G. Gordon, of Birnie, from the edge of the crystalline rocks (there 
micaceous flagstone, in part used as slates) to the maritime promontories of Burg 
Head and Lossie Mouth, and was convinced that the yellow sandstones in which 
the air-breathing reptile, Telerpeton Elginense, was found, are truly part and 
parcel of the Old Red or Devonian series. In exploring the coast range from 
Burg Head to Lossie Mouth, he observed that the strata had been thrown up on 
an anticlinal, trending parallel to the more inland ridge with the Telerpeton ; and 
that, whilst the inland ridges are associated with hard subcrystalline cornstones 
(limestones., first described by Profe-sor Sedgwick and himself as analogous to 
the Old Red of England, so the coast-ridge, folding over, dips on the sea-shore 
beneath another band of similar cornstone, which in its turn is overlaid by flag- 
like, deep red sandstone, clearly seen in reefs at low water. In tliis Morayshire 
series there is not a trace of a carboniferous plant, and the strata are so 'louud 
together by mineral characters and fossil remains that they must all be grouped 
as Old Red or Devonian. Where fossil plants liave been found in strata of this 
series, as in Caithness, and where the formation puts on a very different mineral 
aspect, the plants, which have been described by Hugh Miller and Salter, are dis- 
tinct from those of the coal-period. 
The chief additional d:ita which had been gained by Sir Roderick during his 
last visit were owing to the discovery by Mr. Martin, of Elgin, of a large bone in 
the very beds at Lossie Mouth which had formerly afforded the huge scales of 
the supposed fish, called Staganolepis by Agassiz. On visiting these quarries with 
Mr. G. Gordon, he was so fortunate as to discover other portions of this large 
animal ; so that comparative anatomists may now determine whether it belongs to 
fishes or reptiles. However this point may be decided, the existence of reptiles 
during the formation of this deposit is established beyond a doubt ; since many 
slabs have been found in the coast quarries of Cummiugstone and Covesea Hill, 
belonging to Mr. Alexander Young, in which are the footprints of both large and 
small animals, each footprint having the impression of three or four claws to it. 
A specimen, from Captain Brickenden, is in the Geological Society's Museum, 
arid others have been sent to the Museum of Practical Geolojy, London; some of 
them having been contributed by Mr. Patrick Duff, of Elgin. The presence of 
large reptiles, as well as of the little Telerpeton, in this upper member of the 
Old Red Sandstone is therefore established. 
After noting certain fossil fishes which occur in parts of the Duke of Rich- 
mond's estates in Banffshire, the author proceeded to review the great masses of 
sedimentary deposit lying along the eastern and southern faces of the crystalline 
rocks of the Grampians, which have been hitherto all classed as pertaining to the 
Old Red Sandstone, though he does not pretend as yet to be competent to describe 
their detailed relations. On these points, however, which Mr. D. Page is working 
out with ability, he begs to oft'er the following suggestion. The true base of the 
Old Red Sandstone, properly so called, is seen in 81iropshire and Herefordshire to 
be a red rock, containing Cephalaspis and Pteraspis, which gradually passes down 
into the grey Ludlow rock ; and in both of these contiguous and united strata, 
remains of large Pterygoti, but of different species in the two bauds, ai'e found. 
