The Geological Age of the North Highlands of Scotland

Abstract

FROM the abstract of Proceedings of the Geological Society (January 5) I learn with surprise that Sir R. Murchison's interpretation of the succession of the beds over the region north of the Caledonian Canal is disputed, and that the relations of the fossiliferous limestone of Durness to the quartzites “are” (according to Dr. Callaway) “by no means satisfactorily established, and that their conformity is rendered dubious by a marked discordance of strike;” in fact that the limestone lies in a synclinal basin amongst the quartzites, so that if the lime stone be of Lower Silurian (“Arenig”) age the quartzites and schists must be older; this I presume to be the inference Dr. Callaway intends to draw, as he says there “is no proof of the Lower Silurian age of the quartzite and newer series of flaggy gneiss and schist” constituting the interior mountainous district.