Tivo Bits of Clay from the Elephant Bed at Kilraaurs. 457 



nation of the numerous bores and pit sections which have 

 been made in the course of mining operations in the Kil- 

 maurs district, which showed that tlie boulder- clay there 

 contains interstratified beds of sand, gravel, and clay. Where 

 the level of the surface of the solid rocks rises towards the 

 surface of the ground the intercalated strata of sand die off 

 against the slope until the rocks come to be covered directly 

 by the overlying boulder-clay. AVhere, on the other hand, 

 the level of the rocks sinks, as it does southward and west- 

 ward, it passes beneath the horizon of the sand beds, and a 

 lower boulder-clay makes its appearance under these beds. 

 There cannot be any doubt that the strata containing the 

 organic remains were formed during the deposition of the 

 boulder-clay which lies beneath and above them, and that 

 the cause of their sometimes being found to rest on the solid 

 rock without a lower mass of boulder-clay is due to the 

 irregularity of the surface on which the whole of these drift 

 deposits were laid down. 



" The peaty matter and the bones of the mammoth and 

 rein-deer found at Kilmaurs are thus," it is concluded, 

 "strictly parallel to those found in similar condition at 

 Airdrie. They probably indicate the passing of what have 

 been called interglacial warm periods or seasons, when the 

 covering of ice upon the country had retired sufficiently to 

 permit an arctic vegetation to spring up on the land and 

 some of the larger northern mammals to roam over it." 



Messrs Craig and Young exhibited at the meeting of the 

 Geological Society of Glasgow on 12th January 1882 a 

 portion of a tusk of the mammoth and a number of arctic 

 shells recently obtained by them from the sinking of a pit 

 near Dreghorn, nearly 3 miles from Kilmaurs. These remains 

 are stated to have been found on a series of muddy sand beds 

 resting directly on the carboniferous strata, at a depth of 

 nearly 90 feet from the surface, and underlying the lower 

 boulder-clay of the district, and in reference to the statement 

 just quoted from the explanation to sheet 22 they say "that 

 that fact — namely, that the beds containing the arctic shells 

 and the elephant remains rested directly on the carboniferous 

 strata at Dreghorn — proved that the statement requires cor- 



