164 Mr Christie on the Occurrence of Flint in Banffshire. 



brown, and grey, more or less translucent, often enveloped in a 

 white siliceous 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 opened ; and the flints, which, at the sur- 

 face 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 pebbles 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 deposite, I can say but little : in one 

 direction, I have traced it for nearly a mile, occasionally inter- 

 rupted 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 de- 

 posites, are the same as those already mentioned. The spot 

 where these deposites 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 ascertain 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 farther down the hill they 

 had met with a bed of white clay, and they believed the depo- 

 site of pebbles, flints, &c. rested on it. 



I have never seen the chalk formation, but, as I understand 

 it, this deposite 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 speci- 

 mens were taken from *. 



• 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. 



