GEOLOGY 19 
ice tended to shoulder in upon the land. This local movement from 
north-west and north is very well marked in the hollow connecting the 
Deveron and Ythan basins from Banff to Fyvie. The Banffshire Hills, 
the Cairngorms and the Central Highlands all contributed their quota 
to the Third Ice-sheet. 
The position of the ice-front at the maximum of this glaciation has not 
yet been traced in every district. From near Fraserburgh to the Ythan 
the ice failed to reach the coast. From the Ythan to Aberdeen its front 
lay out to sea, but it struck the land again at Bay of Nigg. From that 
point to near Cortachy its position can be traced with some precision : 
it nowhere transgressed the Highland Boundary Fault except for short 
distances on the Bervie Water, North Esk and West Water. At Cortachy 
and beyond the ice seems to have spread across Strathmore and the 
southern Sidlaws. 
C. Sorts—Only in disconnected and very restricted areas can a 
sedentary soil be seen. In many cases where there appears to be a transition 
from solid rock to soil, the latter is found to contain some admixture of 
ice-carried erratic material. Soils are preponderatingly glacial or travelled. 
In the area covered by the Strathmore drift, especially round Ellon and 
Port Errol, one fancies that the underlying rock must be Old Red shales, 
sandstones and conglomerates; but this is exceptional, and there is 
usually in every travelled soil a large proportion of local material. ‘There 
is much peat both at high and low levels. 
D. Scenery.—With few exceptions hills under 2,000 ft. exhibit the 
flowing contours characteristic of glacial wear. From certain favourable 
view-points the hills of Banffshire and of Lower Deeside and North 
Kincardineshire look like the ground-swell of an ocean congealed after 
some prodigious storm: only rarely a craggy summit breaks the general 
monotony. 
The fine scenic features of the Cairngorm and Lochnagar granite 
massifs are the direct results of glaciation—corries, corrie lakes, U-valleys, 
glen lakes (some now silted up), lateral and terminal moraines. 
Most of the beauty spots in our river valleys are found where the 
streams, diverted from their pre-glacial courses through the infilling of 
these by drift, now flow in post-glacial rock-gorges, e.g. Brig 0’ Balgownie, 
Bridge of Alvah, Poldhulie Bridge (Strathdon). In this way the Don 
in the last ten miles of its course has been five times compelled to entrench 
itself in rock. 
The lower Findhorn, which like the lower Spey has an abnormally 
steep gradient, has excavated in granite, schist and Old Red Sandstone 
a series of picturesque gorges, the ultimate cause of which may be 
rejuvenation by the same uplift that affected the lower Spey. 
The major part of the coast-line of the four counties is rock-bound 
with fine and varied cliff scenery. It is interesting to note the contrast 
between the minutely fretted line of cliffs cut in schists with the more 
regular wall-like appearance of those cut in granite and in Old Red 
conglomerates and lavas. More Head of Gamrie (schist) rises steeply 
to a height of almost 500 ft. 
