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TORRS WARREN. 
By JouHN SMITH. 
(Read 209th January, 1903.) 
THE Torrs Warren extends from near Sandhead in Wigtonshire 
to near the Piltanton Burn, a distance of about six miles; is 
bounded on the south-east by Luce Bay, and on the north-west, 
roughly speaking, by the Sandhead road, as far as the Mid Torrs 
Cottage. It is narrow at both ends and widest towards the 
middle, where it will be about a mile and a half across. The 
geological formations of the Torrs are the raised beach and the 
fEolian deposits, or sand dunes. The raised beach consists of 
an under division of very well-rolled pebbles, mostly of the grey- 
wacke rocks of the neighbourhood ; but also of occasional stones 
of granite, quartzite, porphyrite, etc., a lot of Ailsa rock being 
present mostly as small rolled pebbles. This gravel has been 
thrown into low ridges, which are often seen in the hollows of the 
Torrs, running parallel to one another, and being lost to sight under 
the sand. This part of the raised beach beds cannot be many feet 
above sea-level, but is always best exposed the further it is from 
the sea. Above the gravel lies a deposit of stratified sea sand, which 
at its thickest part is about thirty feet, and it evidently extended 
at one time over the whole area of the old antiquarian ground. 
It is from the deformation by the wind of this part of the old 
beach that the material of a certain part of the dunes has been 
derived. Only a few outlying remnants of the sand bed are now 
to be seen, and any fossils they may have contained have dis- 
appeared, as is frequently the case with the fossils of this beach. 
The Torrs (hillocks) are naturally divided into two sets, those 
derived from the raised beach sands, and those from the sand 
blown up from the recent shore. Outside of the Torrs area the 
older raised beaches of the district are seen at much higher levels, 
as near Dunragit, and during that period the Irish Sea extended 
to the foot of the hills, the Rhinns of Galloway having then been 
an island. 
