Geological Features of the District of Buchan, 37 



'witb clay, supposed to be diluvial, and other matters to a greater or less 

 depth. Upon the Stirling hill the granite rises to the surface, or nearly 

 so, over an extent of from 100 to 150 acres. In every place where the 

 syenite or granite is laid bare, imbedded masses, veins, or dikes of primi- 

 tive trap, gneiss, quartz, and compact felspar, are alternate with, and run 

 through it. In some cases one half of a block is granite, and the other 

 primitive trap, in complete cohesion, and often passing into each other. 

 At the old castle of Boddam, the rock is separated by a fissure or chasm, 

 one side of which is granite, and the other primitive trap. This chasm 

 runs east and west, the granite being on the south, and the trap on the 

 north, with a considerable angle to the horizon. Near the Buchanness 

 lighthouse, there is a pretty extensive bed of hornstone porphyry, also a 

 rock resembling clinkstone porphyry. The rock along the coast, from 

 Buchanness to the mouth of the Ugie, may be seen at low water mark, 

 and consists of granite, primitive trap, syenite, gneiss, compact felspar, 

 felspar porphyry, and quartz, variously associated with each other. The 

 Meethill is covered with a deep mass of diluvial clay : at the brickwork, 

 which is about fifty yards from the beach, and where the clay has been 

 cut to the depth of from thirty to forty feet, it exhibits various strata, 

 which appear to have been deposited at different times, from their differ- 

 ences in quality and colour : some of the deposits are not above an inch 

 in depth, while others are several feet. The skeleton of a bird was lately 

 (1837) dug out of the clay here, at the depth of twenty-five feet from the 

 surface, and about fifteen or twenty feet above the level of the sea." 

 This diluvial clay, mixed in some places with rounded pebbles, covers a 

 very considerable part of the parish. 



When I come to describe the chalk-flints, I shall have to recur again 

 to this portion of the coast, meantime I pursue my general sketch. 



The next three miles represents the coast line of the parish of St. 

 Fergus. The beach is flat and sandy, and the whole line of shore is 

 thrown into two divisions by the rocks at Scotston Craig, each division 

 forming a rude segment of a circle ; the one extending from the mouth 

 of the Ugie to the Craig, and the other onwards to near Rattray Head. 

 The shore is completely cut off from the inland by a series of hills, which 

 have been formed by the drifting of sand, and which being thickly covered 

 with bent grass, prevent the sand drift encroaching on the rich arable 

 lands of the interior. 



The only rocks in situ, arc to be scon at Craig Eweu, near the mouth 

 of the Ugie, and at Scotston Head. 



At Craig Ewen, we have granite, containing very little quartz in its 

 composition, and exhibiting, though rarely, veins of compact felspar of a 

 deep red colour. 



At Scotston Head the rocks are accessible only at low water. They 

 consist of granite, gneiss, trap, quartz, and limestone. " The gneiss and 

 granite,' says the Statistical Account, " appear often in close and 

 inseparable union. The granite varies in appearance as it comes more 



