OF SCOTLAND.

363

verses the island diagonally, from the coasts of Kincardineand Forfarshire on the east, to those of Renfrew and Ayr onthe west, the fossils—restricted very much to the gray sand-stones of the deposit—are of an entirely different group.Here, as in the immensely developed Cornstones of England,the prevailing and most characteristic organism is the Cepha-laspis ; which has now been found in Forfar and Kincardineshires by Sir Charles Lyell , Mr Webster, and others; inStirlingshire by our ingenious brother member Mr AlexanderBryson ; and in Ayr by the late Dr Brown of Longfine ;—all the specimens, however, in the same gray beds of mica-ceous sandstone represented by what is known as the Ar­ broath pavement, which, like the red deposits that lie overand under them, run from side to side of the kingdom.While the fossils of the Lower Old Red Sandstone are moreadequately represented in my collection than those of anyother Scottish formation, the fossils of this Middle Old Redare almost the least adequately represented. And in thisrespect it resembles every other collection yet made, exceptthat of Mr Webster, now, I understand, in the possession ofLord Kinnaird . There is perhaps no Scottish formation inwhich the Palaeontologist has still so much to do as in thisMiddle Old Red Sandstone. Our respected President DrFleming called attention, a full quarter of a century ago, tosome of its plants, and again took up the subject no fartherback than last year, in an interesting paper read before ourSociety; and Agassiz has figured and described some of itsfishes and, more partially and incidentally, at least one ofits crustaceans. But much still remains to be done. Fromwhat I have seen of Mr Webster’s collection, I should inferthat materials have been already accumulated sufficient forthe restoration of its great crustacean,—one of the most gi-gantic of its family, whether recent or extinct; and as theDen of Balruddery has furnished of itself nearly a hundred