:y20 MR MILNE ON THE MID-LOTHIAN AND EAST-LOTHIAN COAL-FIELDS. 



traced to the westward nearly a mile. Its width (wliere it is cut through) is 

 about eighty yards. There ai-e niunerous slips or fissures in the sand, which break 

 the continuity of the layers, and produce in miniatiu'e exactly the same pheno- 

 mena which have been produced by slips in the subjacent rocks. The layers of 

 sand, where dislocated, are invariably lowermost on the upper side of the shp, as 

 they are found to be in the rocks of the coal-measures. 



There appear to be several of these sand-banks between the Water of Leith 

 and the Frith of Forth, all running parallel to each other, and forming undula- 

 tions of surface in that particular surface, which are sufficiently remarkable. 



This same deposit of sand occurs also in Inveresk Church-yard, — at Wardie 

 (where it is eight feet thick), — New Hailes (where it is eighteen feet thick), at 

 Cowjnts (where, in the engine-pit, it was found to be about eighteen feet), and near 

 the Duke of Buccleuch's new brick-work, where it is at least eight feet thick. 

 Immense banks of it are also to be seen in the parishes of Lasswade and Roslin. 

 To the west of Loanhead a bank of sand was gone through in sinking a coal-pit, 

 and found to l)e thirty-two feet deep. It rests there on boulder-clay about five 

 feet thick. These ridges run, generally speaking, in an east and west direction, 

 and extend in that direction many hundred yards. Their breadth on an average 

 does not exceed 100 yards. The Loanhead sand-bank can be traced for nearly a 

 mile, — foi-ming a continuous ridge or rampart, very visible from the Edinburgh 

 and Peebles road. On the south side of the Esk at Springfield, sand-banks equally 

 extensive, and still more deep, occur. 



I have found and heard of no organic remains in the sand belonging to this 

 part of the series. 



6. I proceed now to describe another member of the series, which I have 

 termed a deposit of sand and shells. This deposit is distinguished from all those 

 previously described, by this circumstance, that it is not situated much above 

 the present level of the sea : it forms a margin or fringe along the south and 

 north shores of the Frith, and also along the shore of the ocean in East-Lothian. 

 Many persons, in travelling along that shore, must have been frequently struck 

 with a high bank, Avhich almost every where presents itself at a greater or less 

 distance from the beach. This bank varies in height from thu-ty to sixty feet 

 aljove the ground which slopes from its base to the sea ; and its base is also from 

 thirty to forty feet above high-water mark. The bank may be very distinctl}' 

 traced along the shore at Granton, Wardie, Newliaven, Seafield, Joppa, New 

 Hailes, Inveresk, Prestonpans, Seton, Aberlady, and at intervals round the coast 

 to BeUiaven. At some of these places, the bank is nearl.y three-foiu'ths of a mile 

 from the present shore, at others, it is close upon the shore. At aU of them, the 

 intervening space is occupied by a layer or deposit of sand or shells. It is this 

 deposit which I am now about to describe. 



