The investigation of the geology of the Southern Uplands, which form the border region between Scotland and England, has played an important role in the history of geological research, from the time of Hutton, through the nineteenth century, and to the present. The 1878 paper, the 'Moffat Series' by Charles Lapworth (see Figure 1) was a major part in the development of the understanding of the geology of the area. Dealing with a region of complex deformation, he worked out the biostratigraphy and structure, using a hitherto largely neglected fossil group, the graptolites. Twenty-one years after its publication, the history of research of this area included in the Memoir published by the Geological Survey in 1899, stated that: '[t]he publication of this [Moffat] paper marks an epoch in the history of the Silurian Geology of the South of Scotland. It remains the greatest and most original contribution to the study of the life-sequence and structural relations of these highly convoluted rocks'.