Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 29.djvu/186

 able. As in Elginshire, the rock near Golspie was formerly burnt for lime ; and its use has been abandoned for the same reasons as in that county. The points in Sutherland where the Cherty Rock of Stotfield has occurred are as follows : —

In a wood N.N.E. of Rhives House, where it was dug and burnt (Farey). The pit is now abandoned.

In the romantic Glen of Dunrobin, by the side of the Golspie Burn, there are two exposures of the rock, the strata evidently having resisted denudation, as in the neighbourhood of Elgin, and appearing under a great mass of superincumbent Boulder-clay. The more northerly of these exposures exhibits the highly calcareous variety of the rock, perhaps forming its upper part, while at the southern point the rock is more siliceous.

In the excavations about the Golspie Bridge, and in digging the foundations of the Golspie Inn, the same rock was met with (Farey).

In the bank south-west of Dunrobin Castle, in what is known as the Quarry Park, there is an old pit where the rock was formerly dug for lime-burning and for marl, and where its characters can be still examined. Here, as in Dunrobin Glen, we find the most complete agreement between this rock and the well-marked Cherty Rock of Stotfield.

Lastly, the rock can be traced running out to sea in the reefs between Dunrobin and Golspie. Here the calcareous portions are dissolved away, and the cavernous masses of cherty material are seen, identical in every respect with the similar weathered masses of Stotfield shore and Spynie Hill.

These last hard masses of chert have been the means of preserving the sandstones below from destruction by denudation, in the same manner as we have seen to be the case in Elginshire. The thickness of sandstone exposed is not great, probably not more than 40 or 50 feet ; but the similarity of the rock in colour, texture, and mode of weathering to the Reptiliferous Sandstone is most striking. It is true that these sandstones have not yielded any reptilian remains, or, indeed, any kind of fossils ; but it must be remembered that the sandstones of Elginshire are equally barren to much greater depths, all the fossils having been obtained from one bed, which is at a lower horizon than any part of the series exposed in Sutherland. The fucus-covered and rarely accessible reefs of the latter county also afford no such facilities for the detection of fossils as are presented by the extensive quarries of Elginshire. The Dunrobin reefs can only be seen at low water : and, indeed, it is only during spring tides that a satisfactory examination can be made of the lowest of them.

It is, I believe, impossible for any one to examine these rocks on the north and south side of the Moray Firth respectively, especially bearing in mind the unique features presented by the higher and calcareous beds, without being fully convinced of their complete identity.

The relations of these strata are, as already intimated, perfectly clear in the county of Sutherland, and they are such as to con-