Mr Taylor on some Examples of Torrent Action. 61 



ness, rested on the edges of strata of apparently similar 

 materials, and were covered by the boulder clay. There was 

 no transition between the one and the other, the line of junc- 

 tion being abrupt. At one place a tongue or spit of shivers 

 ascended into the till, of nearly 6 feet in length, rising at 

 about 20°, and pointing eastward." 



In the figure given with this description, a trap-dyke {d ) 

 cuts through the almost vertical rocks, and is marked as 

 abraded to allow the shivers to lie on it. In cutting the 

 foundations for the most easterly of this company's gaso- 

 meters nine years ago, to a depth of 25 feet, this dyke was 

 found standing right up in the boulder clay. It had to be 

 levelled by blasting. 



The Edinburgh Gas Company occupy the area on the north 

 side of the stream by five gasometers, the two westerly ones 

 having only been erected last summer. Through the kind- 

 ness of Mr Peter Henderson I give a section of the founda- 

 tions, which were dug to a depth of 20 feet. They formed 

 4 feet humus and soil, 9 feet sand and gravel, and 13 feet 

 boulder clay. In this latter bed were found long trunks of 

 beeches, 20 feet by 2 feet broad. While digging the founda- 

 tions for the gasometer on the opposite bank of the stream 

 just referred to in the preceding paragraph, haK-a-dozen stems 

 of beech and hazel were dug out. Here, too, the total thick- 

 ness of the boulder clay was pierced, which was not done in 

 the foundation digging of last summer, and beneath it was 

 found, not a layer of shale shivers as in Fleming's section, 

 but one of trap-boulders, which were broken up to mac- 

 adamise the yard. These finds apparently connect with the 

 peat-bed between Leith and Golden Acre, described by Mr 

 Milne Home many years ago. Below a bed of sand, some 10 

 feet thick, this peat-bed, 1 foot thick, rested on 10 feet of 

 laminated blue clay, again superinjacent on the boulder clay. 

 In this peat-bed were roots of trees, apparently hazels, which 

 evidently had grown in the clay. The bark was alone 

 undecayed; there were stems of marsh plants, and small 

 seeds not unlike those of the whin which the late Mr M'JSTab 

 attempted to germinate without success ; there were also some 

 elytra of beetles. Professor Fleming conclusively showed 



