337 
sible, Dr. Buckland observes, to account by such agency for the polish 
and striz on rocks at Blackford Hill, two miles south of Edinburgh, 
pointed out to him by Lord Greenock in 1834. On the south face 
of this hill, at the base of a nearly vertical cliff of trap, is a natural 
vault, partly filled with gravel and sand, cemented by a recent infil- 
tration of carbonate of lime. ‘The sides and roof of the vault are 
_ highly polished, and covered with strie, irregularly arranged with 
respect to the whole surface, but in parallel groups over limited ex- 
tents. These strie, Dr. Buckland says, cannot be referred to the 
action of pebbles moved by water; Ist, because fragments of stone 
set in motion by a fluid cannot produce such continuous parallel 
lines ; and 2ndly, because if they could produce them, the lines would 
be parallel to the direction of the current: it is impossible, he adds, 
to refer them to the effects of stones fixed in floating ice, as no such 
masses could have come in contact with the roof of a low vault. On 
the contrary, it is easy, he says, to explain the phenomena of the 
polish by the long-continued action of fragments of ice forced into 
the cave laterally from the bottom of a glacier descending the valley, 
on the margin of which the vault is placed ; and the irregular group- 
ing of the parallel striz to the unequal motion of different fragments 
of ice, charged with particles of stone firmly fixed in them, like the 
teeth of a file. The cave is not three hundred feet above the level 
of the sea, and the proving of glacial action at this point justifies, — 
the author states, the belief that glaciers may also at that period 
have covered Calton Hill and the Castle Hills of Edinburgh and 
Stirling. 
A paper “‘ On the Geological Evidence of the former existence of 
Glaciers in Forfarshire,’’ by Charles Lyell, jun., Esq., F.R.S., 
F.G.S., was commenced. 
Dec. 2.—James Smith, Esq., of Deanston near Doune, Stirling- 
shire; Charles Christian Hennell, Esq., Hackney ; Joseph Parker, 
jun., Esq., Exeter; the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P., 
Whitehall Gardens; John Floyer, Esq., of Stafford, Dorchester; and 
the Marquess of Breadalbane, Taymouth Castle, N.B., were elected 
Fellows of this Society. 
_. Mr. Lyell’s memoir ‘‘ On the Geological Evidence of the former 
existence of Glaciers in Forfarshire,’’ commenced on the 18th of No- 
vember, was concluded. 
Three classes of phenomena connected with the transported 
superficial detritus of Forfarshire, Mr. Lyell had referred, for several 
years, to the action of drifting ice; namely, Ist, the occurrence of 
erratics or vast boulders on the tops and sides of hills at various 
heights, as well as in the bottoms of the valleys, and far from the 
parent rocks; 2ndly, the want of stratification in the larger portion 
of the boulder formation or till; and 3rdly, the curvatures and con- 
tortions of many of the incoherent strata of gravel or of clay resting 
upon the unstratified till*. When, however, he attempted to apply 
'* See Mr. Lyell’s paper on the Norfolk Drift, Phil. Mag., May 1840, 
and the Abstract of the paper, anéé, p. 171. 
