Liherton Old Red Sandstone Conglomerate Bed. 255 
Grange House, a quarry has recently been opened, in which 
a conglomerate, precisely similar in mineral composition to 
that of Liherton Brae, is disclosed. The bed has been 
opened at its outcrop with the surface ; and this may be 
traced as an elevated ridge, running nearly in the direction 
of Professor Syme's villa on the one hand, and Marchbank 
on the other. The dip of the exposed beds, about 25°, is 
N.E., similar to that of the Grange Quarry. The mineral- 
ogical character of the bed varies very much even in the 
small space exposed. For while the conglomerate structure 
is manifest in that part in proximity to Grange House, the 
exposed beds in the Morningside direction exhibit the ap- 
pearance of a coarse-grained sandstone, with here and there 
a pebble interspersed, — in short, very much the structural 
appearance presented by the lower beds of the old Grange 
Quarry, situated a short distance above this new one. The 
exposed beds we are describing are generally very fissile ; 
several vertical dislocations are exhibited ; they are five feet 
in depth, being bounded below by a seam of brownish yellow 
clay, very similar to that exhibited beneath the greenstone of 
Salisbury Crags. The direction of this bed, which is generally 
synchronous with the rest of the Lower Carboniferous series 
surrounding the city, and its position being considerably be- 
yond the supposed fault, skirting the valley of the Braids, 
throws great doubt on the stratigraphical importance as- 
signed to the Liherton conglomerate. Both beds evidence 
a rapid current, carrying with it debris from the outlying 
flanks of the Braids and the Pentlands ; but that they are 
the passage-beds of one great life system into another, has 
by no means been proved. The method of seeking the 
classification of the English carboniferous beds in the Scot- 
tish system, neglecting the physical proofs whether such 
beds really exist, has done much to involve in confusion the 
physical geography of Britain during the Coal era. The 
appearance of the Liherton bed at the Grange may be chro- 
nicled, then, as one more fact tending towards the conclu- 
sions of that increasing class of geologists who hold that the 
Scottish and Irish carboniferous beds are not on the same 
geological horizon with those of England, but belong to an 
