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Account of the Progress of the Geological Survey in Scotland, illustrated by Maps and Sections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
The object of the Geological Survey is to ascertain in detail the geological structure of the United Kingdom, and to publish the results in maps, sections, and descriptive memoirs. The Ordnance maps form the groundwork on which these geological investigations proceed; and as no district is examined until these maps are ready, the progress of the Geological Survey is guided in no small degree by that of the Ordnance engineers. In Scotland, the geological mapping has hitherto been conducted wholly upon the county maps on the scale of six inches to a mile, and the advantages of so large a scale are such, that although the work is finally reduced and published on the scale of one inch to a mile, no county is surveyed until its six-inch maps are ready for use.
- Type
- Proceedings 1864-65
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1866
References
page no 357 note * It is right to state that the above remarks are not intended to impute any blame to the way in which the Ordnance Survey has been conducted, but simply to explain why the Geological Survey has hitherto been able to do so little in the great coal-fields.
page no 357 note † From what has been said above relative to the state of the Ordnance Survey, it will be seen that though the staff of geologists has been small, it has been quite large enough for the number of maps available for geological purposes. The geologists have been all along treading closely on the heels of the Ordnance surveyors, and, to have increased the staff, would soon have brought the Geological Survey to a stand. What has been needed has not been more geologists, but more maps.
page no 359 note * See “The Geology of Eastern Berwickshire,” Mem. Geol. Survey, p. 27.
page no 359 note † This section combines in a generalised form the result of the survey made in concert by my colleagues, Dr John Young, Mr James Geikie, Mr B. N. Peach, and myself.
page no 360 note * I may mention in passing, that Ruberslaw, and perhaps some of the felspathic hills of that district, seem to mark the site of volcanoes of the time of the Upper Old Red Sandstone. The hills to the south-west of the town of Ayr are formed of felstones and ashy conglomerates, which appear to belong to some part of the Old Red Sandstone period. They are at present under investigation by the Geological Survey.
page no 362 note * This view of the origin of the till was proposed by me in October 186 and published in the following spring in my “Memoir on the Phenomena of the Glacial Drift of Scotland,” and a woodcut was there given (p. 99) to show how the deposit might contain the remains both of land plants and of sea-shells.
page no 362 note † These percentages were taken in September 1863, in company with my colleague, Dr Young.
page no 364 note * They have been carefully examined by Dr Young, who has given an account of them in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for 1864.
page no 364 note † It is not usual to publish the results of the Geological Survey until they appear in the authorised and official form. In the present instance, I am indebted to the courtesy of the director-general, Sir Roderick I. Murchison who at once most cordially gave his sanction to the publication of the above abstract in the Proceedings of the Society.