456 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



account yet given of the tusk of 1817, was of opinion that it 

 was not found like the tusk of Clifton Hall in the boulder- 

 clay, which he designated the old alluvial cover, but in the 

 recent alluvial cover, which he considered proved by the 

 marine shells found with it. Dr Scouler, who furnished the 

 particulars regarding the Kilmaurs elephants, published by 

 Mr Smith of Jordanhill in the "Wernerian Memoirs" in 

 1838, judging from what he found himself — " a molar tooth 

 on the clay heaps " — concluded that the remains were really 

 in the boulder-clay. Dr Bryce, however, in 1866, by opening 

 the quarry again of set purpose, found that the elephant 

 remains were actually got in beds under 16 feet of real 

 boulder-clay and 20 feet of what he called upper drifts, and 

 of course concluded that their age and position was pre- 

 glacial. The same opinion was adopted by Messrs Young 

 and Craig in their elaborate " Notes on the occurrence of 

 beds of fresh- water plants and arctic shells, along with the 

 remains of the mammoth and reindeer in beds under the 

 boulder-clay,"^ in which in great detail is given their dis- 

 covery of the peat bed and arctic shell bed in numerous pit 

 sections in and around Kilmaurs, with lists of the seeds and 

 shells found in them. From the evidence gained by their 

 discoveries, beyond what was formerly known, they concluded 

 " that it tended to establish in a clear manner the existence 

 of two sets of strata of different origin and age under the 

 boulder-clay of the Carmel valley at Kilmaurs — the lower 

 being of fresh-water origin; the upper an arctic marine 

 deposit ; " and add, without giving a decided expression as 

 to the particular age of either deposit, " we are, however, 

 inclined to view them as pre-glacial remnants of the oldest 

 post-tertiary beds yet discovered in the west of Scotland, 

 and from the character of the organisms, marking, as it were, 

 the dawn of the glacial period in this country." 



In the explanation to sheet 22 of the Geological Map of 

 Scotland, published in 1871, an opinion is given that the 

 elephant bed at Kilmaurs was interglacial in position and 

 age. This opinion is there said to be founded on " an exami- 



^ Trans. Geol. Soc. of Glasgow, iii,, p. 310. 



