PROCEEDINGS OF GEOI.OGICAL SOCIETIES. 
4.5 
geology of this district ; and having given in detail an examination that he made 
of the coast last autumn, he drew particular attention to the faithful and compre- 
hensive descriptions of the Old Red district by Sedgwick and Murchison in former 
years, and showed that his own observations quite coincide with the results of Sir 
^Roderick Murchison's late coiTclation of the dneissic, Cambrian, Silurian, and Old 
Red strata of the coasts of Sutherland, Ross-shire, and Caithness. 
In conclusion. Mi: jMiller pointed out that the Durness Limestone and the 
Fossiliferous beds of Caithness were still open fields for careful and energetic 
explorers. 
2. " On the Geological Structure of the North of Scotland. Part III. The 
Sandstones of Morayshire, containing Reptilian Remains shown to belong to the 
Uppermost Division of the Old Red Sandstone." By Sir Roderick I. Murchison, 
F.R.S., D.C.L., V.P.G.S., &c. 
Referring to his previous memoir for an account of the tri])le division of the Old 
Red Sandstone of Caithness and the Orkney Islands, the author showed how the 
chief member of the group in those tracts diminished in its range southwards into 
Ross-shii'e, and how, when traceable tlu'ough Inverness and Nairn, it was scarcely 
to be recogiiised in Morayshire, but reappeared with its characteristic ichthyolites 
in Banffshire (Dipple, Tynet, and Gamrie). 
He then prefaced his descrijjtion of the ascending order of the strata belonging 
to this group in Morayshire by a sketch of the successive labours of geologists in 
that tract ; pointing out how in 1828 the sandstones and cornstones of this tract 
had been shown by Professor Sedgwick and himself to constitute, together with 
the inferior Red Sandstone and Conglomerate, one natural geological assemblage ; 
that in 1839 the late Dr. Malcomeson made the important adtlitional discovery of 
fossil fislies, in conjunction with Lady Gordon Gumming, and also read a valuable 
memoir on the structure of the tract, before the Geological Society, of which, to 
his, the author's regxet, an abstract only had been i)ublished. (Proc. Geol. Soc. 
vol. iii. p. 141.) 
Sir Roderick revisited the district in the autumn of 1840, and made sections in 
the environs of Forres and Elgin. Subsequently, Mr. P. Duff, of Elgin, published 
a " Sketch of the Geology of Moray," with illustrative plates of fossil fishes, sec- 
tions, and a geological map by Mr. John Martin ; and afterwards Mr. Alexander 
Robertson threw much light upon the structure of the district, particularly as 
regarded deposits younger than those under consideration. 
All these writers, as well as Sedgwick and himself, had grouped the yellow and 
whitish-yellow sandstones of Elgin with the Old Red Sandstone ; but the discovery 
in them of the cmious small reptile, the Telerpeton Elginense, described by ManteU 
in 1851, from a specimen in Mr. P. Duff's collection, first occasioned doubts to 
arise respecting the age of the deposit. Still the sections of Capt. Brickenden, 
who sent that reptile up to London, proved that it had been found in a sandstone 
which dipped under " Conistone," and which passed downwards into the Old Red 
series. Capt. Brickenden also sent to London natural impressions of footprints of 
an apparently reptilian animal in a slab of a similar sandstone, from the coast- 
ridge'extending from Burgh Head to Lossiemouth (Cummingston). 
Although adhering to his original view resjiecting the age of the sandstones, Sir 
R. Murdiison could not avoid having misgivings and doubts, in connnon with 
many geologists, on account of the high gi'ade of reptile to which the Telerpeton 
belonged, and hence he revisited the tract, examining the critical points, in 
company with his fiiend the Rev. G. Gordon, to whose zealous labours he owned 
himself to be gi'eatly indebted. 
In looking thi-ough the collections in the public museum of Elgin and of Mr. P. 
Duff', he was much struck with the appearance of several undescribed fossUs, 
apparently belonging to Reptiles, which, by the liberality of their possessors, were, 
at his request, sent up for inspection to the Museum of Practical Geology. He 
was also much astonished at the state of preservation of a large bone {ischium), 
apparently belonging to a reptile, found by Mt. Mai-tin in the same sandstone- 
quarries of Lossremouth, in which the scales, or scutes, of the StagonoJepis 
(described as belonging to a fish by Agassiz) had been found. On visiting these 
quaiTies, Mr. G. Gordon and himself fortunately discovered other bones of the 
same animal ; and these having been compared with the remains in the Elgin col- 
