Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 29.djvu/151

 concerning the position of the remarkable rock of Stotfield in Elginshire, which contains galena (op. cit. vol. i. pp. 303, 401).

In 1811 Sir Humphry Davy made an examination of the rocks of Sutherland, especially noticing the strata which are found on the south-eastern coast of the county, and wrote a short account of them. These observations were never published ; but the MS. and the series of specimens collected by the author to illustrate his descriptions are preserved in the Duke of Sutherland's Museum at Dunrobin.

Captain John Henderson's ' General View of the Agriculture of the County of Sutherland,' published in 1812, preserves a copy of one of the sections made during the trials for coal at the Water of Brora (Fascally).

In 1812 John Farey, sen., the well-known author of the ' Mineral Report on Derbyshire,' and the friend and correspondent of William Smith, made a professional examination of the Sutherland coal- field. His Report, which is in MS., and is dated 29th April, 1813, is a most valuable essay ; it is accompanied by an admirable series of sections and maps ; and in the execution of the whole of these the author has vindicated his claim to be regarded as one of the foremost among the pioneers of geological science. Farey, like Townsend and Richardson, clearly foresaw the important fruit which the discoveries of Smith were destined to produce, and, like them, sought everywhere to apply those principles which his friend taught, and to collect new facts to aid him in his generalizations. Fully recognizing the importance of the study of fossils as characterizing particular rocks, he made collections from several of the Secondary beds in Sutherland, and transmitted them to Mr. Sowerby ; some of these fossils were afterwards figured in the ' Mineral Conchology.' Farey was the first to detect the fact that the coal-bearing strata of Sutherland do not belong to the true Carboniferous system, but are of Secondary age : he also traced clearly the position of the several coal-seams, and the character and effects of some of the principal dislocations to which they have been subjected. To the geologist at the present time Farey's Report is of especial service, preserving, as it does, accurate records of old pits and sections now no longer open ; and I am happy to acknowledge the great services which I have myself received from it.

In 1819 Mr. Robert Bald laid before the Wernerian Natural- History Society of Edinburgh an account of the Clackmannanshire coal-field, in which he furnishes some details of the peculiarities of the strata seen at Brora. His paper was published in 1821, in the memoirs of the above-named Society (vol. iii. p. 138).

About this time Mr. George Anderson, of Inverness, an indefatigable local observer, laid before the Philosophical Society of that town a paper on the Sutherland coal-field, which appears never to have been published ; his experience, however, would seem to have been subsequently placed at the service of Sir Roderick Murchison, who warmly acknowledges the assistance received from him.

In 1824 Dr. Buckland and Mr. (now Sir Charles) Lyell visited Sutherland, and recognized the fact that the coal-bearing beds were