A fresh-water, or rather perhaps an estuary, limestone is an object of considerable geological interest in this locality, mixed up and altered in many places by the igneous matter. The best sections occur a little back from Pittycur harbor, and on the western slope of Binn-hill, where it is extensively quarried. Scales of fishes and other ichthyolites are very abundant: also innumerable microscopic shells, belonging to the order of entomostraca and the genus cypris. Several species of palæoniscus have been found in good preservation, namely, P. ariolatis, P. ornatissimus, and P. Robisoni. The Pygopteris Jamesoni and specimens of the Eurynotus and Crenatis have likewise been detected in the deposit. Vegetable remains are very plentiful, especially of the fern tribe and the lycopodiums: the impressions of the sphenopteris, of which there are several species, are extremely numerous, fresh, and beautiful. This limestone is of a dull, earthy aspect, acquired obviously from the bituminous matter diffused through the mass; not crystalline, though very compact in texture, and possessed of great hardness. Wardie beach, on the opposite shore, displays a bed having many points of resemblance, which abounds in nodular masses, inclosing coprolites and fishes; and inland, the celebrated Burdiehouse limestone is an extension of the Fifeshire deposit. Thus varied and important is this small peninsula, a speck on the face of the globe, and affording so much room for speculation and detail. Inclosed between the estuaries of the Tay and Forth are to be found some of the most legible and remarkable chronicles of our planet’s history. Fifeshire has been stirred and upheaved all over, abounding in all the life-moving and plutonic energies of the carboniferous age. The vegetable and animal kingdoms supply a vast proportion of the materials of the sedimentary rocks, while the fires of the interior have mainly contributed to the production of the rest. Shall we look across the waters, and replace them, in imagination, by the former continuity of land, when the center of the coal-basin was raised above them, and their numerous islets were high and dry upon the surface? Certain it is, that the erupted matter so abundantly scattered along the shores and piled up in such masses landward, would leave room for subsidence, while the outgoing of the deposits on both sides shows such an affinity in quality and strike as to demonstrate an ancient union and geological connection. [Illustration: Diplopterus—new species.] CHAPTER X. THE CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS—CONTINUED.