I have to express my acknowledgments to Messrs. W. and R. Chambers for a considerable number of the figures contained in the volume, and which have already appeared in one or other of their numerous publications. To Mr. David Page, than whom I do not know a better practical geologist, I am indebted for much valuable information, gleaned by him in an extensive acquaintance with most of the ground passed under review. The errors of the volume are my own, and these, I doubt not, in a science subject to such daily mutations and receiving daily such additions as the science of geology, will be found neither few nor venial. NEWBURGH MANSE, May, 1850. CONTENTS PART I. GEOLOGY OF SCOTLAND. CHAPTER I. Introductory—General Sketch of the Science, 13 CHAPTER II. Primary System.—Ben-Mac-Dhui.—The Grampians, 22 CHAPTER III. The Silurian System.—First Traces of Organic Life, 34 CHAPTER IV. The Devonian System.—Fossils of the Old Red Sandstone, 43 CHAPTER V. The Yellow Sandstone.—Dura Den—Fossils of, 62 CHAPTER VI. The Trap Rocks.—The Sidlaws and Ochils, 79 CHAPTER VII. The Carboniferous System.—Period of Gigantic Vegetables, 93 CHAPTER VIII. The Carboniferous System—_continued_.—Geographical Distribution of Coal.—The Great Coal-Field of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio.—Coal Deposits of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.—Economic History of Coal.—Conditions of Formation, 115 CHAPTER IX. The Geological Structure of Fifeshire, 132 CHAPTER X. Geology of Edinburgh and its Environs.—Mid-Lothian Coal-Basin.—The Pentlands, 138 CHAPTER XI. The Lammermuirs.—The Border Land.—Reptilian Foot-Prints in Old Red Sandstone of Pennsylvania.—General Structure of Scotland, 150 PART II. GEOLOGY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. General Sketch.—Geology of the Lake District, 160 CHAPTER II. The Permian System.—The New Red Sandstone.—Foot-Prints near Pottsville, Pennsylvania—In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia.—Rock-Salt.—Exhumation of immense Skeletons of Birds, 168 CHAPTER III.