138 Froceedinjs of the Royal Physical Society. 



bogbean and many spores of Isoetes. This compressed 

 peaty layer was distinctly laminated, and seemed to consist 

 wholly of stems of reeds. It lay partly on several large trap- 

 boulders, and partly in the hollow spaces between them, 

 showing that it had been deposited on an uneven bed out of 

 which the boulders protruded. (3.) The next layer was a 

 mud or silt, three or four inches in thickness at the north 

 end of the section, but increasing to as many feet at the 

 south end — only rootlets were found in several samples of 

 it. (4.) A bed of peat about three feet in thickness in the 

 middle of the section where it was best exposed and most 

 typical. The peat consisted chiefly of vegetable mud or 

 earth felted with mosses or reed stems or simple vegetable 

 fibres, probably the compressed rootlets of plants. From 

 being felted with these it would not dissolve or separate, and 

 had to be crushed mechanically by the hand in water, which 

 made the washing and separating of the seeds and other 

 things from the matrix rather laborious, but the labour was 

 well repaid by the extraordinary number of seeds, insect 

 remains, chiefly beetles ; and cases of caddis worms of two or 

 three forms, one of which was in hundreds or rather thou- 

 sands. Full lists of all, we hope, may form the subject of a 

 future paper, when the identification of the whole is com- 

 pleted. The uppermost six inches of this bed was even 

 more felted with mosses and reed stems, some parts consist- 

 ing wholly of them cemented by a little reddish-brown mud. 

 A small quantity of the finest portion of this mud was 

 examined in 1887 for Diatoms by Mr R Kidston and 

 I)r J. Eae, E.K, who found in it about 40 species, a list 

 of which — as determined by them — is given at page 154. 

 Throughout the whole of this peat-bed stones were fre- 

 quent, mostly sandstones and trap, but a few were of 

 Silurian grit or greywacke. (5.) Above this peat-bed stood, 

 in section, 10 or 12 feet of stony clay, but being nearly 

 covered by vegetation its character was Jiot visible at a 

 dance, thoudi there could be little doubt it was boulder 

 clay. Near the southern end of the peat-bed is an assemblage 

 of waterworn boulders with gravel, resting on the rock, and 

 it is likely that, as at Hailes, a river with quiet lake ex- 



