458 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



rection, for that there was no evidence whatever for it, but 

 rather directly against it," and they reiterate their opinion 

 that these deposits are of preglacial age. 



But from a paper which appeared in the Irvine Herald 

 newspaper of date 4th October 1884, and evidently written 

 by Mr Craig, it appears that the statement that the elephant 

 beds rested directly on the carboniferous strata was founded 

 upon some misconception or mistake, for it is there distinctly 

 stated that below the shell bed in which the tusk of 1882 at 

 Dreghorn was found there " lies 20 feet of sand and gravel 

 resting upon the carboniferous strata ; and further, in trying 

 to fix the age of the beds," Mr Craig says " that the physical 

 evidence is against the use of the term ' preglacial,' because 

 that in the large accumulation of the sand and gravel beds that 

 lie between the carboniferous strata and the sheU and mam- 

 moth beds, houlders of West Highland rocks are abundant." 

 These are, he continues, "granites, schists, clay slates, and other 

 rocks such as are found in the boulder-clay that rests upon 

 the mammoth and shell beds." " These boulders," he further 

 continues, " are not of large size, and are apparently beach- 

 worn ; still they could only be brought into their present con- 

 dition either through the agency of drift or land ice." "These 

 erratics," he further states, " are found from the bottom to 

 the top of the sand beds, and whatever method of transport 

 be adopted, the long period that must have elapsed during the 

 accumulation of the boulders by whatever means is not 

 favourable to the preglacial formation of these fossiliferous 

 beds." "The term interglacial," Mr Craig continues, "is 

 scarcely less objectionable. There is no satisfactory evidence 

 that any of these sand and gravel beds are the production of 

 land ice. There has indeed been found in a few bores wide 

 apart, and not always on the same horizon, a clay or sand 

 mixed with gravel. This might have been brought by the 

 same agent that carried the boulders — drift ice. The regular 

 division of the deposit into beds, and, as far as pits have shown, 

 into beds that are laminated, is not favourable to deposition by 

 land ice, but on the contrary, in favour of a water origin — 

 still the term (interglacial) is more preferable to the mam- 

 moth beds at least than preglacial, seeing that the underlying 

 beds have a glacial relation." 



