Fig. 54: Vertical conglomerate and sandstone. The most unequivocal evidence of such a change is afforded by their standing up vertically, showing their edges, which is by no means a rare phenomenon, especially in mountainous countries. Thus we find in Scotland, on the southern skirts of the Grampians, beds of pudding-stone alternating with thin layers of fine sand, all placed vertically to the horizon. When Saussure first observed certain conglomerates in a similar position in the Swiss Alps, he remarked that the pebbles, being for the most part of an oval shape, had their longer axes parallel to the planes of stratification (see Fig. 54 on preceding page). From this he inferred that such strata must, at first, have been horizontal, each oval pebble having settled at the bottom of the water, with its flatter side parallel to the horizon, for the same reason that an egg will not stand on either end if unsupported. Some few, indeed, of the rounded stones in a conglomerate occasionally afford an exception to the above rule, for the same reason that in a river’s bed, or on a shingle beach, some pebbles rest on their ends or edges; these having been shoved against or between other stones by a wave or current, so as to assume this position. Anticlinal and Synclinal Curves.—Vertical strata, when they can be traced continuously upward or downward for some depth, are almost invariably seen to be parts of great curves, which may have a diameter of a few yards, or of several miles. I shall first describe two curves of considerable regularity, which occur in Forfarshire, extending over a country twenty miles in breadth, from the foot of the Grampians to the sea near Arbroath. Fig. 55: Section of Forfarshire, from N.W. to S.E.