600 



The most remarkable was at the north foot of Arthur's Seat, 

 close beneath the line of the North British Railway, and within the 

 precincts of the St Margaret's Station. It was a swelling piece of 

 surface, fully thirty feet each way, and all beautifully polished and 

 scratched, the strise pointing to E. 15° N. Many greenstone boulders 

 of large size, generally with flattened and polished soles, marked 

 with strise in the line of greatest length, were taken out of the clay- 

 drift which overlay this surface. 



About two years ago, the officers of H. M. Office of Works were 

 good enough, at my request, to lay bare a few yards of the surface 

 of the trap-bed near the summit of Salisbury Crags. The exposed 

 space was found to be worn down into a smooth slope, with shallow 

 channelings and deeply cut striae in the line of the inclination, E. 

 15° N. Many of these strise could be traced for one or two yards ; 

 and throughout a space of fifty feet along the summit of the hill, 

 they were all of uniform character. The cliff" has here been quarried 

 away, so as to form a deep sinus, and, as the lines go up to the pre- 

 sent verge, it is of course to be presumed that they had originally 

 gone much farther. 



What is, however, most remarkable in this instance, is the clear 

 presence of a system of cross scratching, of posterior date, and quite 

 as evidently the result of natural causes. These scratches are gene- 

 rally less than one foot long, and only impressed on the swelling 

 interspaces between the channelings already described. They point 

 to E. 20° S., being a difference of 35° from the direction of the 

 earlier and more general striation. It is worthy of remark, that the 

 summit of Arthur's Seat lies pretty nearly in the centre of the sepa- 

 rating lines. 



Professor Fleming having some years ago observed some glacial 

 markings on the verge of a projecting piece of rock, at a spot called 

 the Egg Pond, about 150 feet above St Anthony's Chapel, I had 

 an exposure made there, by favour of the Government Officers, to the 

 extent of two or three yards. This surface is flattened, polished, and 

 marked with strise pointing to E. 15° N. 



The Egg Pond, it may be further remarked, beside which this 

 smoothed surface is presented, is a now dry hollow, forming part of 

 a little narrow valley which here indents for 150 yards the haunch 

 of the hill. It is a circumstance not without its significance, that 

 this little valley or trough lies in precisely the same direction 



