134 Proceedings of the Royal Fhysical Society. 



Geological Map of the district (Edinburgh, Sheet 2) to be a a 

 old alluvial plain, and from traditions we learn that the 

 eastern part of it from Edinburgh to Corstorphine was 

 formerly a marsh difficult to cross, especially at night, and 

 that a beacon lioht used to be affixed to the stable end of 

 Corstorphine Ciiurch to guide benighted wayfarers safely 

 across it. This little lake, of which the silt and the shells are 

 now the only memorials, was doubtless one of many which 

 once studded this plain in parts with water pools, each not 

 many acres in extent, in which the little life which luxuriates 

 in plasliy places dwelt for many generations through a 

 lengthened period ere a bed of organic silt 8 or 10 feet in 

 thickness could be elaborated, every grain of which silt was 

 without doubt once alive. 



Kethymyre Lake. 



In making a private railway from Binnend Oil Works to 

 Kinghorn in 1887, an old lake marl was cut through in a low 

 flat hollow named Kethymyre at the foot of Eodanbraes, 

 about two miles N.E. of Burntisland. The section exhibited 

 was as follows : — (1.) Peat, 1 ft. ; (2.) marl, 1 ft. ; (3.) greenish 

 clay with shells, 3 ft. ; (4.) clay without shells, 1 ft. ; 

 (5.) boulder clay. The peat was rusty brown and very loose 

 in texture, and an oak tree trunk about IJ feet in diameter 

 stretched across it. At one place an irregular bed of sand 

 3 to 4 feet in thickness, and striped with bands of light and 

 dark red sand, seemed at one place to be upon the marl and 

 at another upon the boulder clay. I note this as giving a 

 rather ancient date for the lake of Kethymyre, but still the 

 name shows that it was extant during the human period. 

 The height of this flat space is about 150 feet above the sea, 

 and its situation not far from the shore of the 100-foot beach 

 period. These peat and marl beds are still (1889) accessible 

 just west of the bridge which carries the road to Kinghorn 

 over the railway. 



Ancient Lake at Hailes Quarry. 



In the summer of 1886 a tirring in the N.E. of Hailes 

 Quarry exposed deposits which could only have been made 



