24) A ddress of the President. 



yet not quite mastered. The day was most favourable. 

 We assembled from various points on Gotterby HUl, an 

 eminence at the end of one of those long ridges of sandstone 

 and drift which frequently stand in the middle of similar 

 valleys. From this an extensive view north and south is 

 obtained, to the northward shewing the Moffat range of hills, 

 closing the iipper part of the valley, and giving from their 

 watershed the streams that accumulate to form the principal 

 river Annan. On the south the lower part of the valley is 

 laid open, and in favourable days the Solway sparkles clear like 

 a lake between Skiddaw and the other English hiUs. The 

 upper Annandale basin is separated from the lower by a 

 meeting of the silurian sides, and the gorge at Dormont is 

 cut through the older rock, which at one time formed a 

 barrier, damming up the water, upon what are now alluvial 

 lands. On the giving way of this gorge these low lands were 

 drained, leaving the series of lochs at Lochmaben as basins, 

 too low for the water to be entirely drawn off. Many of the 

 other hollows nearly drained, became marshes, gradually 

 fiUing up and producing peat, and these in after changes 

 were again silted over with the present alluvial soils. There 

 is a most instructive lesson to be studied here. 



Corncockle Quarry was the first object for investigation, 

 and fortunately some tracks of footmarks had been recently 

 exposed. Several species of animals must have walked over 

 the sands before they became hardened into stone, or were 

 raised to their present angle of about 36°; but hitherto no 

 trace whatever of any organic remains has been discovered, 

 although anxiously watched for. The cover of the quarry is a 

 tenacious clay, locally called till, fiUed with stones of various 

 sizes, but few reaching that to which we could apply the term 

 loidder. This has been considered as glacial drift, and it 

 must have been carried over the sandstone beds after they 

 were upraised in a semi-fluid state, as their edges are now 

 horizontally cut off" and smoothed, at the same time deeply 



