Chambers—'' Eshar" at St. Fort. 



549 



interval of time consumed is so immense, that our insect eyes are often 

 as incapable of discerning, as our minds of grasping, the facts which 

 she lays before us. It is only by a long and close process of reason- 

 ing that we can arrive at the solution of a single problem. 



Section of the Tekn Valley showing the relative positions of the 



Drift- BEDS. 

 1300 feet. 250 feet. 20 feet. 20 feet. 



la) Summit of ths Wrekin. 



(b) High level drifts, on Red Sandstone. 



(c) Protrusion of Basaltic rock. 



(d) Sand. 



(e) Clay under peat, lake basin. 



(/) Present river-level. 



[g) Low-level drift. 



(h) Bank of river valley. 



The accompanying diagram shows the relative positions of the 

 Drift-beds I have described. Although not, perhaps, strictly correct, 

 it is so nearly so as to afford a sufficient guide to any geologist 

 desirous to examine these beds. 



ilTOTIODES OI^ D^vdllBlivdlOIiaS. 



Geological Papers read before the British Association, at 



Dundee. 



L — Notice of an '^ Eskar " at St. Fort, Fifeshire. By 

 Dr. EoBBRT Chambers, F.E.S.E., F.G.S. 



ESKAES, though of frequent occurrence in Ireland, and very 

 numerous in Sweden, where they are recognised by the plural 

 word " osar," are comparatively rare in Scotland. One of a very 

 striking character occurs about three miles inland from Newport, on 

 the road from Dundee to Cupar-Fife, and on the estate of Mr. 

 Stewart, of St. Fort. It is fully a mile long, and in some parts half 

 a mile broad ; rises from thirty to forty feet above the neighbouring 

 ground, and is, unfortimately for the geologist, wholly covered with 

 trees. Its surface is rough and uneven. Several good sections, pro- 

 duced by the cuttings for the road to Kilmany, show it to be com- 

 posed of gravel chiefly rounded, including many large pieces, some 

 of which are of Primitive rocks. The skirts of this " eskar " melt 

 into a vast gravelly tract of cultivated ground, undulating towards 

 Balmerino, but in other directions forming flat surfaces on a higher 

 level. Elsewhere there are gravel mounts of less elevation, with 

 rounded tops. The whole are manifestly relics of a vast sheet of 

 alluvium at between eighty or ninety feet above the present level 

 of the sea, extending southward into the valley of the Eden, and 

 thence eastward by Kincaple and Strathtyrum to St. Andrews. The 

 history of this great sheet of alluvium is probably connected with 



