206 WALK THROUGH THE MOORS. CHAP. xiv. 



On he went, observing many high braes of undoubted 

 boulder clay, though covered with grass and heath. He 

 observed also sections of granitic debris similar in every 

 respect to those he had seen at Dirlot and Dallmore. 

 And then he came upon a mass of blue boulder clay 

 filled with marine shells Cyprina, Crassina, and Turri- 

 tella terebra. " At this moment," he says, " I cannot 

 tell how I felt. Here, at last, was abundant reward for 

 my day's journey. 



" On I went, hoping that my luck was in the 

 ascendant. But no. The soil along the bottom of the 

 Bower valley is wholly sandy alluvium. I was 500 

 years too late ! The river has done for this locality 

 what Thurso river is busily doing for the boulder clay, 

 namely, tumbling and rolling it about from side to side, 

 sweeping it away, and laying down alluvium in its place, 

 till at length, imprisoned in its own toils, it rolls away, 

 a sleepy, despised, obscure thing. 



" On and on. Floods have been here, and see ! here 

 on the river banks is something new shells of the 

 Alosmodon margaritiferus lying open, and the dead 

 animal in them. And see ! pieces of broken Cyprina 

 from the boulder clay lying cheek -by -jowl. Do you ask 

 me how I knew them to be from the boulder clay? 

 Simply by the family likeness. There is no mistaking 

 one's old friends. 



" On and on, through marsh and mire, ankle-deep, 

 and deeper. On to the confluence of the water of 

 "Wester. Boulder clay and shell fragments are found 

 all the way. I traced up the river of Bower until it was 



