84 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
XIII. 
THE SOILS OF THE NORTH-EAST 
OF SCOTLAND 
BY 
Pror. JAMES HENDRICK, B.Sc. (Lond.), F.1.C. 
THE soils of the North-east of Scotland have been formed almost entirely 
from debris left behind when the ice melted at the end of the glacial 
epoch. The whole surface of the country had been planed down by the 
ice and nearly all the loose material swept away. When the ice melted, 
it left masses of broken rock of every degree of fineness, and these 
were sorted out to a certain extent and distributed by the water 
produced by the melting ice. ‘The underlying rocks from which this 
debris was derived are generally hard, crystalline, igneous and meta- 
morphic rocks such as granite and crystalline schists. In limited parts of 
the area there are ancient sedimentary rocks such as the Old Red Sand- 
stone of the Mearns and Moray. ‘The glacial deposits, from which the 
soils have been formed, are generally closely related to the underlying 
rocks, and hence in the Old Red Sandstone districts the soils have been 
largely derived from Old Red Sandstone, while in granite districts the 
soils are largely derived from granite. In the neighbourhood of Insch, 
where the underlying rock changes from a basic crystalline rock to slate, 
a corresponding change is almost immediately found in the soil. 
The soils are, generally speaking, very variable in depth and quality. 
In many places the bare rock smoothed by ice action has been left at or 
near the surface. In such cases the soils are poor and thin. Poor or 
worthless soils are also found where the masses of boulders which have 
been left by the ice form boulder-strewn areas with patches of thin soil. 
In other areas deeper deposits of finer materials have weathered down to 
form good fertile soil. Large parts of the area under natural conditions 
were covered with peat more or less thick. Much of the peat has been 
removed and the land reclaimed. In other cases where the peaty or 
moorish layer was thin the land has been reclaimed without removing 
the peat, consequently there are considerable areas of poor peaty and 
moorish soil throughout the district. 
In all parts of this area the rainfall exceeds the evaporation, so that 
soluble materials cannot accumulate in the soil ; also there is little lime- 
stone found in the North-east of Scotland and the soils are almost 
invariably acid in reaction. The acidity varies greatly from very acid 
moorish and peaty soils to soils which are only slightly acid, but even on 
basic rocks, the soils are more or less acid. The more fertile soils are of 
moderate acidity only, generally about 5:5 to 6:5 pH. The principal 
