The Position of the Old Red Sandstone in the Geological Succession

Abstract

MORE than sixty years ago Hugh Miller, in his classic on “The Old Red Sandstone,” remarked, “There are some of our British geologists, too, who still regard it as a sort of debatable tract, entitled to no independent status. They find, in what they deem its upper beds, the fossils of the Coal Measures (i.e. Lower Carboniferous), and the lower graduating apparently into the Silurian System; and regard the whole as a sort of common, which should be divided as proprietors used to divide commons in Scotland half a century ago, by giving a portion to each of the bordering territories.” One object of the present work is to show that the conditions under which the Old Red Sandstone was produced may not have been of the character of inland lakes without free connection with the sea; and another object is to show that these conditions may not have begun only after the close of those which produced the highest Silurian strata, nor have terminated before the date of deposition of the oldest of the Carboniferous beds.

The Position of the Old Red Sandstone in the Geological Succession.

By A. G. M. Thomson Pp. vi + 224. (Dundee: John Leng and Co., 1903.)