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XII. On the Fresh-water Limestone of Burdiehouse in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, belonging to the Carboniferous Group of Rocks. With Supplementary Notes on other Fresh-water Limestones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Samuel Hibbert
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Extract

I propose in this memoir to methedically connect several desultory notices, which I had occasion to read during the last session of the Royal Society's meetings, relative to the Limestones of fresh-water origin in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, belonging to the carboniferous group of rocks, and to the organic remains which they contain.

Hitherto, the limestones belonging to this older class of deposits have been considered as exclusively of marine origin. I had long since, however, been prepared to expect that a limestone of a fluviatile or fresh-water origin would, some time or other, be proved to exist. For, in judging from analogy, it would be unreasonable to presume, that, when fresh-water limestones appear in the rocks of every later epoch, they should meet with an exclusion in the carboniferous group. In entertaining, therefore, less confined views, I was not at all surprised to find them confirmed in a limestone near Edinburgh, which lately came under my examination,—I allude to that of Burdiehouse. It enclosed none of the marine shells, corallines, or encrinites to be found in the other limestones of the vicinity, but contained in the place of them, and in the greatest possible abundance, the various plants observable in our coal-fields. I also procured from it specimens of fish allied to such as are obtained from beds associated with coal. These facts indicated to me that I had at length found a fresh-water limestone belonging to the carboniferous group of rocks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , 1835 , pp. 169 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1835

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References

page 280 note * In concluding my mineralogical account of this deposit, I would observe, that my intelligent young friend, Dr Simpson of Bathgate, was the first to inform me, after the reading of my paper, that the limestone of Kirkton had been noticed in an article by Dr Fleming, published in the Edinburgh Journal of Science for April 1825, (p. 307.) In this paper, a brief allusion is made to the siliceous laminæ of the limestone, as well as to its botryoidal and mammillary structure. It is also stated, that “several trunks of trees with their branches” had turned up, in which concentric zones and perpendicular fibres were visible. Dr Fleming's remark, that this limestone “encloses the remains of those marine animals which are common in the limestones of the coal formation,” I consider as a mistake. The memoir is entitled, “On the Neptunian formation of Siliceous Stalactites.” It is almost entirely theoretical, being a defence, in reference to siliceous developments, of the doctrine taught by Werner.

I may also add, that since an abstract of this memoir appeared in print, Mr Maclaren of Edinburgh has published (in the Scotsman) some very ingenious observations upon the trap-rocks in the immediate vicinity of this thermal deposit, in which their stratified character is advocated. I am sorry that the extreme length of my memoir prevents me from entering into an explanation of his views, and from expressing my own opinion regarding them.

page 281 note * In concluding this account of the Eurypterus, I beg to express my best thanks to Dr Simpson of Bathgate, for giving me the opportunity of describing the specimens in his possession, as well as to Mr Smith of Jordanhill, for the loan of the specimen in the Andersonian Museum of Glasgow.