Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 153 



having a base or ground of white or gray colour, and apparently com- 

 posed of decayed felspar, and very minute scales of mica or talc, 

 or both, in which are imbedded rounded pebbles of grayish-white 

 translucent quartz-rock. The quartz-pebbles are from the size of 

 a pea to that of a hen's egg. This conglomerated mass is here and 

 there alternated with or traversed by a white quartzy sand, 

 with scales of mica. The whole conglomerated mass is mixed up 

 with flints of various sizes and forms. The flints are yellow, brown, 

 and gray, more or less translucent, often enveloped in a white sili- 

 ceous opaque crust, and containing organic remains principally of 

 sponges or alcyonia. In some flints the centre is hollow, and the 

 walls of the cavity lined with calcedony. One of the hillocks has 

 been opened to the depth of about fifteen or eighteen feet. The 

 quartz-pebbles become more translucent the deeper the pit is open- 

 ed ; and the flints, which, at the surface of the ground, are generally 

 of a brown colour, exhibit other tints in the interior of the bed. The 

 hollows between the hillocks are destitute of pebbles and gravel, 

 and have a clayey bottom. The direction of the hollows appears 

 in general to run east and west. These hollows may perhaps 

 have been scooped out, and the beds containing flints and peb- 

 bles of quartz carried off by some of those mighty inundations which 

 have more than once swept over the face of nature. 



As to the extent of the deposit, I can say but little : in one di- 

 rection, I have traced it for nearly a mile, occasionally interrupted 

 by the hollows. The point where the specimens were taken up is 

 about half a mile distant from another patch, through which the 

 ditch I formerly mentioned has been cast. At that point, also, the 

 flints and quartz-pebbles, and other deposits, are the same as those 

 already mentioned. The spot where these deposits are found is in 

 the interior of the country, about ten miles from the sea, and is the 

 highest ground in the neighbourhood. I have not been able to as- 

 certain the depth of the bed, as the pit filled with water on digging 

 down, and the water became thick with the clayey or chalky matter. 

 The workmen, however, told me, that further down the hill they had 

 met with a bed of white clay, and they believed the deposit of peb- 

 bles, flints, &c. rested on it. 



I have never seen the chalk-formations, but, as I understand it, 

 this deposit has many features of its upper strata. The flints are 

 abundant throughout the whole, and I found them on the surface 

 at a mile distant from the hillock where the specimens were taken 

 from*. Edin. New Phil. Journ., Jan. 1831. 



* We trust Mr. Christie, and other members of the Banff Institution, will 

 continue their researches in regard to these flints ; for possibly the chalk- 

 formation itself may be found in situ in this part of Scotland. Edit. 

 Edinb. New Phil. Journ. 



N. S. Vol. 9. No. 50. Feb. 1831. X NEW 



