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of Edinburgh, Session 1868 - 69 . 
their memoirs on the Red Sandstones of the northern counties, on 
the Structure of Arran, and Sir Roderick’s first important essay— 
that on the Secondary Rocks of the north of Scotland. 
Shortly after the publication of MacCulloch’s map, the Highland 
and Agricultural Society of Scotland, impressed with the necessity 
of more detailed and accurate geological information than had yet 
been given, began to offer liberal premiums for surveys and de- 
scriptions of various parts of the kingdom. The result of this 
scheme was the publication of a series of prize essays and maps of 
different counties and districts, full of valuable information, and 
much more in detail than anything which had been before attempted 
for the same parts of the country. The first essay in the order of 
issue was that of Mr Milne-Home on Berwickshire, which appeared 
in 1836, and afterwards there came at intervals memoirs on the 
counties of Roxburgh, Peebles, Sutherland, Banff, Renfrew, Dum- 
fries, Kirkcudbright, &c. 
The Wernerian Society, also, about the same time, proposed a 
series of geological essays, with premiums for the successful com- 
petitors. One of the subjects for competition was a geological 
account and map of the three Lothians, and the prize was awarded 
in 1836 to Mr Hay Cunningham for his now well-known memoir 
on that subject published in the Society’s Transactions. 
The published journals of the different scientific societies con- 
tinued to receive occasional contributions in descriptive geology 
with accompanying maps, such as Mr Milne- Home’s account of 
Roxburghshire, Mr Stevenson’s G-eology of Cockburn Law and of 
the Eastern Lammermuirs, Sir R. Murchison’s Geology of Carrick, 
and others ; while now and then there appeared a separate work, 
such as Mr Maclaren’s G-eology of Fife and the Lothians. 
Using MacCulloch’s map as a basis, amending it, and adding to 
it the work of the different subsequent labourers in the field, Pro- 
fessor Nicol published a Geological Map of Scotland in 1858. Its 
scale was ten miles to an inch. Among the improvements which 
distinguished it from all preceding maps of the country was the 
separation of the red sandstone of the north-west coast from the old 
red sandstone of the rest of the island — a change rendered necessary 
by the results of the conjoint researches of Sir Roderick Murchison 
and Mr Nicol. In the year 1859, Sir Roderick, who since 1826 
