XVI. Recent Discoveries among the Silurians of South Scotland

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Abstract
N o sooner were these ancient strata studied in earnest by geologists, instructed by the world-renowned achievements of Murchison in Siluria, than what appeared to be clear and unmistakable proofs of a definite sequence were discovered. The earlier investigators soon recognized the fact that, when viewed upon a large scale, they dipped apparently N. and S. from an axial line running from Berwick to Dumfries. In the neighbourhood of this line they had a very ancient appearance, reminding the geologist of the strata of the Longmynd, which, in Siluria, rise out from below the base of the Silurian system. A further resemblance was found in the fact that they were similarly destitute of all traces of organic life. Precisely as in Siluria, the rocks which surmounted these barren beds in the south of Scotland were found to contain an abundance of the little understood fossils known as graptolites. These graptolite-bearing strata were subsequently ascertained to form the floor of the whole of the Uplands to the north of the unfossiliferous beds, except near the town of Girvan in Ayrshire. There certain limestones and schists were discovered, crowded with fossils, the majority of which were identical with those of the Caradoc formation of Wales, which was known to succeed the great graptolite-bearing Llandeilo formation of that country. To the north of these Girvan beds, higher Silurians were detected in the Pentland Hills and at Lesmahagow, crowded with Upper Silurian fossils, and passing upwards into rocks belonging to the succeeding system of the

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