298 
years according to warmth, moisture, or earliness. Thus much 
appears from the inquiry, that the attempt of Sir William Herschel 
to deduce the climatic influence of the solar spots from the market 
price of wheat, rests on a fallacious basis. It is only fair to add, 
that Sir William Herschel employed it with a reservation as to its 
reliability as a criterion of the temperature. 
3. On the Mountain Limestone and Lower Carboniferous 
Hocks of the Fifeshire Coast. By the Bey. Thomas Brown. 
Communicated by Dr Allman. 
The writer stated that this paper was the result of observations 
made while staying at the sea-coast for a few weeks in autumn. Near 
Ardross a bed of limestone had been discovered, with peculiar fos- 
sils, which promised geological results of some interest. To deter- 
mine its stratigraphical position, it was necessary to reduce to order 
a portion of the coast, hitherto held to be in a state of hopeless con- 
fusion. This led to fuller inquiries, till the rocks underlying the 
coal-field had been examined from Burntisland to St Andrews. 
Section I. A general description of the rocks was given, as seen 
along the shore, accompanied by a section in which they were laid 
down to scale. 
Section II. Two classes of trap-rocks were referred to, viz.-— 
1 . The contemporaneous and interstratified ; 2. The intrusive — this 
term being designedly used as expressing no opinion in regard to 
their origin, merely that the surrounding strata had been fractured, 
and through these fractures the traps in question had come into their 
present position. No proof had presented itself that these intru- 
sive traps had exerted an upheaving agency, except perhaps at one 
point, and there only to a small extent. 
Section III. The Mountain Limestone was described as consist- 
ing of three parts, viz.— 
1. The six upper limestones, A to F. These, with their inter- 
calated strata, immediately underlie the coal-fields. They are ma- 
rine, and to them the term Mountain Limestone has usually been 
restricted. Their fossils were described. — Of crustaceans, there 
were one species of Trilobite, one of Eurypterus, one of Gampsonyx, 
(a genus not hitherto found in Britain), and two of Dithyrocaris, 
both, it is believed, new. Of fish, besides Bhyzodus, Holoptychius, &c. 
