Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/249

 less marked by organic remains than in the other districts. Sp. No. 15, which, from its texture and the pearly lustre of its recent fracture appears to be composed of shells and other organic remains extremely comminuted, is from St. Joseph's parish, which, although not strictly a part of Scotland, has features in common with it. Imbedded in this rock I found coarse flint, and a fine grained ferruginous sandstone is in contact with it: this latter is in nearly vertical strata, and is the only specimen of siliceous sandstone which I have met with in the island. The rocks near the spot are frequently found impregnated with bitumen.

The following peculiarities are observable in the district; the country is much more broken into hill and valley than any other part of the island, it has few or no gullies, is watered by some scanty streams, and has no traces of those successive stages which give so peculiar a character to the opposite side of the island. Its land boundary is in some places a very lofty cliff, and in every part a ridge of pretty considerable elevation, having a precipitous descent towards the north.

In the parish of St. Andrew this descent is the site of a spring upon whose surface floats the bitumen which is to be met with more or less in every part of the district, and is seen to exude through the soil: near some small hollows which have been made to collect this substance is a spring through whose muddy bottom carbonated hydrogen bubbles and burns with a lambent flame when a lighted taper is held above it.

The soil here appeared to be more argillaceous than that of the rest of the island, and indeed there is a pottery of coarse ware in Scotland, which I believe is the only part which furnishes the material for it.