1888-89.] The Duke of Argyll on Bodies of Organic Origin. 43 
in these to originate in organic remains or impressions.”* At the 
same time it is to he remembered, and it seems to have been much 
forgotten, that Macculloch and not Mr Peach was the first dis- 
coverer of the now famous fossils of Durness and of Eriboll in 
Sutherland, — some of which are described by him as occurring in 
quartz rock, intimately associated with beds of limestone. It is 
indeed most singular that an interval of thirty-five years should have 
been allowed to elapse between the publication of Macculloch’s work 
and the rediscovery of those fossils in the Durness limestones by Mr 
Peach — because not only had Macculloch detected in the associated 
beds of Loch Eriboll certain definite organisms which he conjectured 
to be fragments of an Orthoceratite, — not only had he recognised 
those beds to be the same as those at Durness, — hut he had also 
observed that the calcareous beds of Durness presented on their 
weathered surfaces “ a variety of singular forms ” which he suspected 
to be of organic origin, and he had expressly indicated the prob- 
ability that a further search in the same beds, which it was impossible 
for him to conduct in a cursory visit, would in all probability reveal 
more abundant organic remains.! It is in connection with this 
early discovery of such remains by Macculloch at Durness that he 
mentions “ vermicular forms ” as observable in the base of the lime- 
stones, and says they are very similar to similar forms found in the 
Devonian Marbles at Babbicombe, near Torquay. The “ conical 
bodies” which Macculloch discovered in the quartz-rock of Loch 
Eriboll have been since assigned to that class of Annelids which live 
in calcareous tubes, and Macculloch’s name has been most properly 
associated with the peculiar species which he discovered. The bed 
of quartzite is now known as the “Serpulite Grit.” It has been 
identified in other places in Sutherland, and is of great value in the 
detailed work of the Geological Survey in that most difficult section 
of country. 
It was, however, perfectly natural that Macculloch should have 
laid little stress, or should have altogether failed to notice, the 
extraordinary abundance of the rod-like bodies in the quartzite of 
Sutherland and Boss, because the special area of his investigation 
was the Islands, and not the Mainland, of the north-western coast 
* Macculloch’s Western Islands , vol. ii. p. 222. 
t Ibid., pp. 512-13. 
