The Ancient Lake of Elie, 151 
like bog beans, and those of the carices. The seeds were 
submitted to Mr Clement Reid, of the Geological Survey of 
England, and [ append a list of them as determined by him, 
Of the animal life that existed in this lake the most frequent 
were the land and fresh-water shells, Their abundance is 
alluded to by Mr Wood in 1863, but is stated more emphati- 
cally by Dr Brown in his paper in 1867, as already quoted. 
In the samples I examined, they were equally abundant in 
all the five places, and generally in good preservation. 
Other remains of animal life were present, such as the cases 
of caddis worms, sometimes composed of sand merely and 
sometimes of minute fragments of shells, built very prettily 
into a mosaic work of fine white scales and grains of grey 
sand; many elytra of beetles were in the peat, retaining 
the same lustrous colours they had when alive. Also an 
extraordinary number of some purplish-brown or black 
bladder-like bags, which I supposed to be egg cases; also 
cocoon-shaped cases of some clear chitine-like substance 
which I also took to be egg cases. In the Bank Street peat 
a few small bones and teeth occurred, of which Mr Simpson, 
assistant to Professor Sir William ‘Turner, has undertaken to 
vive a description and list, 
Of the superficial extent of this ancient lake we cannot fix 
the precise limits. We only know that from a little east of 
the station it extended westward in the line of the railway 
to about half-way between the station bridge and the bridge 
under the Kilconquhar road, and in the line of the High Street, 
from its junction with the Harbour Road, westward as far as 
Bank Street. How far it stretched north of the railway we 
do not know. But from recent exposures observed by Mr 
Affleck—one at Wadslea Farm, about one hundred yards 
south of the station; one at Elie Lodge, overlooking the 
Toft; one at the south side of Hlie Manse lawn, just above 
the terraced gardens that stretch to the beach—it probably 
extended southward beyond what is the present shore line. 
Of its depth we have more precise knowledge. Dr Brown 
gives the depth of the deposit of blown sand with the layers 
of shelly peat as from 20 to 30 feet in perpendicular depth, 
But as in the wpper part he mentions only land shells as 
