On the Occurrence of a Bituminous Substance near Mountgerald

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Abstract
The section exposed by some deep cuttings for the Ross-shire Railway, two miles north of Dingwall, was described by Dr. Anderson in this letter. The rock in these catlings is a grey, micaceous, regularly bedded, and almost horizontal conglomerate, but exhibiting enormous convolutions and twistings of the beds. The strike is N.W. to S.E., and the rock, in some places, passes into a fine compact sandstone. It is traversed at intervals by what appear to be perpendicular veins or fissures, lined for the thickness of an inch or two with a black, shining, compact, bituminous substance having a black streak and a conchoidal fracture. It burns with smoke and flame, and becomes electrical when rubbed; and it does not exhibit any trace of organized matter. Its composition is said to be similar to that of the Albertite of New Brunswiek. A bituminous substance has long been found in veins at Strathpeffer in quantities sufficient for burning in the neighbouring cottages. To what extent these veins may go down in the adjoining rocks is not known. At Mountgerald the seams are not thicker than an inch or two; but in the beds of the Boulder-clay, immediately above the sandstone-conglomerate, small pieces of the coaly matter occur in abundance. The bituminous shale comes in near the sandstone-conglomerate in which the black matter occurs, and, as the author believes, above it; and he traced the former thence over the ridges looking down on the Cromarty Firth as for as into Strathskea.

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