On the Geological Structure of the Southern Grampians

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Abstract
1. Introduction .—The nature and origin of the crystalline or metamorphic strata have recently formed the subject of various memoirs, both in this country and abroad. Living in a region in great part composed of these rocks, and having for many years been engaged in examining them in various parts of Scotland, I have naturally taken much interest in these discussions. I now venture to lay before the Society an account of some sections which I have recently examined (several of them not for the first time), as they appear to me to throw light on some points of high importance both in the history of the earth and the structure of our own country. Before noticing special sections, it is right to mention that I have long held the view of the metamorphic origin of these so-called primary strata. In my ‘Guide to the Geology of Scotland,’ in 1844, I pointed out the close resemblance of some parts of these formations to the Silurian strata in the South of Scotland, and indicated that they were merely the metamorphosed representative of the latter. In a paper read before the Geological Society in 1849 I again stated this opinion, and specially noted the “band of clay-slate from Stonehaven to Arran as forming the continuation of the Silurian beds in the south, rising up on the other side of the synclinal valley in which the Carboniferous strata of Scotland have been deposited”*. The same views of the identity of the crystalline strata in

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