Excavations AT Morrat SEWAGE Works. 45 
was laid bare at a depth of seven feet, where it formed a layer 
of peat moss. The thickness or depth of this peat was just 
similar to that of the combined turf and soil on any ordinary 
ground. From portions of this peat, on breaking it up into 
small pieces and examining it carefully, I gathered a few hazel 
nuts, pieces of bark, and small pieces of wood. The roots 
and branches of a large tree were also taken from the excavation 
at the same depth. A few years ago I spent part of a day 
examining the peat mosses around Loch Skene. I did not do 
any digging, but examined where the hags showed a good section. 
Pieces of wood of varying thicknesses up to one inch and a half 
in diameter were plentiful, and as far as I could make them out 
myself, I had specimens of hazel, alder, birch, and oak. The 
diameter of the one large piece I noticed would be six inches. 
The specimens brought away were subsequently forwarded to 
Professor Scott-Elliot at Glasgow. The peat formation at Loch 
Skene covers a considerable area of ground, as it extends between 
Whitecoomb and Winterhope Burn head the one way, and along 
the Tail Burn the other. Loch Skene itself is the result of 
glacier action, as its waters have been ponded back and formed 
into a loch by the accumulation of glacial debris and moraine 
matter which have been deposited in the valley there, the moraines 
there being one of its interesting features. The Midlaw Burn, 
which is only separated from Loch Skene by the Midcraig Hill, 
has cut its way through this moraine matter, which at one time 
had ponded it back so that the loch formed by it is drained 
away, and its bed is now a flat meadow, and through time Loch 
Skene will succeed in cutting for itself a course deep enough to 
drain itself away similar to the Midlaw Burn. Loch Skene is 
fully 1700 feet above sea level. 
Following upon the reading of the paper there were exhibited 
specimens of hazel nuts, bark, and other vegetable matter taken 
from the peat in the trenches, and Permian breccia and striated 
stones from the glacier drift of the Moffat valley. 
