XXX. The Redemption of Sandstone Quarries

Abstract

I shall perhaps most fitly introduce the subject of this paper with a reminiscence. At an early time in my pursuit of fossils, I was attracted to the shale heaps in limestone quarries as giving the most congenial opportunities for collecting. This was due to the fact that neither crowbar, pickaxe, nor shovel, nor even hammer was required to resurrectionize the remains of the long-past dead that I coveted, this having been already done by the hands of the quarrymen, helped by the disintegrating influences of the weather. All that I had to do was simply to kneel down on the weathered shale heaps, and lift the fossils as easily as is done in gathering shells from the sands on the seashore. For many years, I therefore haunted all the shale-bearing quarries within au easy walk or railway ride from Glasgow. The yield of fossils was great at first, especially in the shale heaps I was the first to discover and search, and for a long period I had full occupation for all my holidays. By-and-bye, however, as the time rolled on, the field became exhausted, first of the rarer fossils and then of the more common species, till at length the crop did not repay the trouble of gathering, and for a whole year the only outlet I could get for my leisure time was to ramble in search of the picturesque and the beautiful in scenery. But I well remember how little I was pleased with the change, This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract