592 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. . [sess. 
The two papers which the Council has deemed worthy of the 
Neill Prize deal with the geology of the Orkney islands. In the 
first, the author sets forth with admirable lucidity the structure of 
these islands and the succession of the strata, and in doing so has 
very materially increased our knowledge of the historical geology 
of Old Red Sandstone times. Everyone knows that the district 
around Stromness has long been famous for its fossil fishes, specimens 
of which are to be seen in almost every notable museum in Europe 
and America. The occurrence of these fishes at Stromness proved 
the presence there of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, but owing to 
the apparently barren character of the overlying strata, which ex- 
tend throughout most of the islands, it seemed hardly possible to 
work out the stratigraphical succession in a satisfactory manner. 
Nevertheless, it had been ascertained that these barren strata were 
overlaid in the island of Hoy by representatives of the Upper Old 
Red Sandstone. Elsewhere throughout the Orkneys, however, 
only the Lower Old Red series is met with, and before the date of 
Dr Flett’s researches all attempts to determine the stratigraphical 
succession of the rocks in question had been based chiefly on 
lithological evidence. Unfortunately, the types of sedimentary 
rocks are few and not very persistent, and hence all that could be 
definitely affirmed with regard to the succession was simply this 
— that the Stromness or basement strata were overlaid by a 
monotonous series of flagstones, presumably of great thickness, 
capped conformably by a higher group of yellow and red sand- 
stones. In a word, the absence of fossils forbade the possibility of 
dividing up the Lower Old Red Sandstone into well-marked stages 
or zones. 
Undeterred by the apparently hopeless aspect of these rocks, Dr 
Flett proceeded to make a careful geological survey of the islands, 
and was in due time rewarded by numerous discoveries of organic 
remains. I need hardly say that the finding of fossils is not, as 
some might suppose, always a matter of mere luck or happy chance. 
Unless one knows where to look, one’s chances of finding are very 
small indeed. Only a born observer could have succeeded so well 
as Dr Flett. Thanks to his keen research, we now know that the 
strata hitherto supposed to be unfossilif erous are readily divisible 
into definite zones, each characterised by its own particular fish- 
