Limestone Nodules. 13 



Tliis cutting was made in a field which liad its original surface 

 undisturbed, hence tlie extra depth of cutting. After the surface 

 soil was taken off, the whole cutting was made through a sandy 

 till, striated stones being found from the surface down to the 

 very bottom of cutting. These striated stones were lying with 

 their long axis parallel to the valley with a dip downwards of 

 10 degrees. Small portions of the material excavated could be 

 recognised as being fragments of the breccia, but no limestone 

 nodules were found in this cutting. 



No. 2 cutting was 3 feet long, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and 2 feet 

 6 inches wide. This cutting had the advantage of having been 

 previously excavated and removed to a depth of 3 feet from the 

 level of its original surface, and hence the small depth of the 

 excavations as compared with No. 1. The stones in this cutting 

 were all striated as in No. 1 section, the description of which 

 will apply equally to No. 2. In the latter cutting we observed 

 two nodules, one in the very bottom and one in the side. One 

 of the striated stones measured 10 inches in length and 5 across 

 The nodules themselves varied in size from a hen's egg to blocks 

 about 5 inches by 3 inches. None of the cuttings was deep 

 enough to reach the rock, but the e%idence of the striated stones 

 may be held as proving that the material in which they occur is 

 a glacial deposit, although the material of which it is composed 

 is principally derived from the destruction of the permian sand- 

 stones and breccias. 



I have examined the breccia where exposures of it are seen, 

 no! ably at the site of the Hydropathic establishment, but have 

 never detected any limestone nodules in it. Since the first 

 discovery of these nodules I have examined nearly all the 

 excavations that have been made for building purposes or other- 

 wise in the immediate neighbourhood, and have found these 

 nodules in nearly everyone of them from Ellerslie Villa down to 

 where the till on this section of the Annan vale tails out at the 

 MofTat Academy, a distance of nearly half a mile in length by 

 about 100 yards wide. In excavations observed south from the 

 Academy no nodules have been observed, although the material 

 excavated has been a red sandy till likewise. Mr Peach informs 

 me that the fossils occurring in these nodules are Camerophoria 

 crumena and Naticopsis plicistria, forms which are characteristic 

 of the lower marine lands of the cementstone series of the south 

 of Scotland. 



