The Scottish Naturalist. 1 5 



the land was below its present level, and the climate of our country and sea was 

 much colder than it is now. Tellina calcarea, Pecten Islandicus, and other 

 mollusca now living only in the arctic seas, found a climate congenial to their 

 nature ; our brick clays containing the remains of these animals were deposited, 

 and that extensive fossiliferous bed formed, which stretches along our coast and 

 appears again in the Moray Firth. After this state of things had continued for 

 a lengthened period of time, the land emerged, whether gradually or otherwise 

 it is difficult to say, but it appears to have attained an elevation of at least 240 

 feet above its present level. The forty-fathom line shows what would have 

 been the southern shore of the North Sea at the time when the land was 

 thus elevated. The deep channel stretching out into the Moray Firth 

 would have formed an estuary, or rather a bay, receiving the waters of the 

 Deveron, the Spey, the Lossie, &c. The Buchan deeps would have been 

 another estuary, receiving at its south end the waters of the Esks, and after- 

 wards those of the Dee and Don, &c. ; and the Long Forties would thus have 

 been a peninsula, bounded on the west side by the estuary just mentioned, and on 

 the east by the North Sea. A great extent of the former sea bed being now dry- 

 land, and the climate of the country vastly improved, the Arctic species of shells 

 were exterminated, leaving their remains imbedded in the clay, as one proof of 

 the severity of the former climate. Their places were then occupied by the 

 species now inhabiting the British seas, and the Long Forties, now a shore, was the 

 habitat of the littoral species. That during this elevation of the land, the climate 

 was as warm, if not more so, than at the present time, is, I think, clearly shown by 

 the extensive beds of submarine forest and peat which here and there crop out at 

 the shore from under the waves. These beds', which must have been formed 

 during this period, contain the remains of plants and trees, as the oak, the birch, 

 the alder, &c. , which, in the present day, have a hard struggle for existence along 

 our coast. 



' ' The land now became submerged again to nearly its present level, and the 

 shores of the North Sea became almost what they now are. The littoral species 

 of mollusca inhabiting the former shores, being incapable of living in deep water, 

 in their turn died, and left their wasted remains accessible to the dredge, attest- 

 ing their previous existence, and the probable position of the shores of the North 

 Sea at the time that they lived.'' 



In corroboration of this, Mr. Dawson remarks, — 



"On examining the dredgings obtained in 1865 by the Rev. Mr. Gregor and ray- 

 elf from different places on the top of this bank [i.e. the Long Forties], we 

 noted at the time that there were none of the Arctic fossils so abundant on the 

 nner plain, but on further examination, we found in a decayed and apparently 

 semi-fossil condition, the following littoral shells, viz. : Purpura lapillus, one 

 specimen ; Littorina rudis, one ; S0U71 siliqua, two ; Mytilus edulis, one large 

 but imperfect valve, and many fragments of the small shore variety. Before it 

 occurred to us that these fragmentary fossils might be interesting in a geological 

 point of view, -the greater part of our dredgings had been examined. It is quite 

 possible, therefore, that other specimens may have escaped notice. All these 

 species are highly characteristic of the shore, Littorina rudis in particular, 

 being only found on rocks at or above high water marks. If only one specimen 

 or one species had been found, it might have been accounted for by a similar 



