48 Mr. Ferguson on the 



north-east, and that for this theory they required to have been reversed. 

 It may be suggested, Might not the elevation of the great northern moun- 

 tain ranges of the continent, have been suflScient to cause a current from 

 its shores, capable of exercising the transporting ])ower required ? The 

 presumption is, however, against such a supposition. 



Standing on the ridge of the hill of Kinmundy, and looking towards 

 the south and east, there is spread out before the eye a wide expanse. 

 Slightly to the north of eastward, the ridge is continuous to the sea" at 

 Buchanuess. Westward it undulates, receding northward, and again 

 stretching out a promontory to the south. Beyond this there is a gorge, 

 narrow and deep ; and again the hills rise, stretching away westward and 

 northward, running out in a series of high grounds by Dudwick towards 

 Turriff and Delgaty, and so onwards to the sea at Boyndie. Between 

 this ridge and the sea, on the south and south- east, there stretches out 

 from the sort of bay described, a breadth of five or six miles of levelish 

 country, presenting inequalities of surface but in the main level, tiU it 

 reaches the sea with a coast line elevated 180 to 200 feet above the sea 

 line. 'It is over this valley that the calcareous sands occur. It is near its 

 centre that the greensand formation lies. And standing, as I have said, 

 on the hill ridge, and marking, as one cannot fail to mark, the band of 

 flint boulders that line near their highest, and at an equal elevation the 

 various bays and promontories, it requires no great stretch of imagination 

 to conceive of the waves of the German Ocean as having once rolled 

 even hither, bearing with them, and depositing on their innermost bounds, 

 the rounded flints that now mark their ancient shore. 



But it may be argued, the greensand beds lay right in the way, and 

 must have suffered also from the denuding power of the waves. If future 

 examination shows these beds to be in situ, we must yet look for another 

 theory. 



I have already stated that the shores of the little bays near Peterhead, 

 present large quantities of the rounded flints. These may be either 

 brought down by streams, or cast up from the sea, I have also inferred 

 from the condition of my specimens of organic remains, from the Cruden 

 greensand, that that formation is either in situ, or at least not far removed 

 from its original position ; not presenting evidence of being water-rolled, 

 and not capable of undergoing, without destruction, that process. 



I wish to connect these two facts with an idea hinted at by Nicol, as 

 already quoted, and additional grounds for which have been pointed out 

 to me by Mr. Hugh Miller. Across the southern districts of England, we 

 have a certain sequence of geological formations, including in regular 

 succession the lias, oolite, and wealden, succeeded by the cretaceous. Across 

 that portion of Scotland immediately to the north of the district at present 

 under our consideration, we have part of the same sequence commencing 

 with the lias. This formation at Cromarty and at Brora, in Sutherland, 

 is considerably to the west of the first appearance of the same formation 

 in England ; but this results naturally from what was before mentioned 



