Geological Society of Glasgow. 285 



has remained, and carbonate of calcium which had been removed. 3. 

 Some tabular concretions, concentrically disposed around twigs, were 

 found to be composed of sand and clay cemented together by peroxide 

 of iron. Two specimens gave respectively 29'97 and 25-14 per cent, 

 of peroxide of iron. The origin of these tubes the author considered 

 to be due to the decaying of the vegetable tissue of the twigs, leaving 

 small holes through which water had carried down iron in some form 

 or another, and gradually cemented together the surrounding sand and 

 clay. On breaking open many pieces of the brown clay, they were 

 seen to be perfectly crowded with holes, some merely surrounded with 

 a stain of peroxide of iron, and in all stages up to the perfect tubes. 

 The iron in the surrounding clay appeared to be equally distributed 

 throughout, so that the excess of iron oxide had been added, he be- 

 lieved, in the manner indicated, and not by segregation from the 

 surrounding matrix. 



II. "Notes oa the Post-Tertiary Greology of the Carse of Falkirk." 

 By Mr. John Burns. The author gave an interesting account of the 

 superficial deposits of the district, derived from an examination of 

 several exposed sections, and from the records of the beds passed 

 through in boring, and by the sinking of shafts for the working of 

 minerals ; his views being, in general, confirmatory of those entertained 

 by Messrs. Croll and Bennie as to the existence of a great trough 

 between the valleys of the Clyde and the Forth. 



III. " On the succession of the Post-Tertiary beds beneath the 

 Boulder-clay at Kilmaurs." By Mr. John Young. In the course of 

 his remarks, Mr. Young stated that ever since the discovery, in the 

 year 1816, of the remains of the Mammoth, JElephas primigenius, at the 

 "Woodhill quarry, Kilmaurs, these beds had attracted the attention of 

 nearly every writer on Scottish Post-tertiary geology. Since the 

 period of the first discovery, some nine or ten tusks, and a portion of a 

 molar tooth had been found, also some horns of the Reindeer, Cervus 

 tarandus, preserved in the Hunterian Museum with two Mammoth 

 tusks. These remains were at first referred to the Boulder-clay. Dr. 

 Bryce, a few years ago, howevei, having become satisfied of the 

 unfossiliferous nature of this deposit as it exists in the West of Scot- 

 land, made an examination of the Kilmaurs beds, and from information 

 obtained from parties who had formerly worked in the old quarry, and 

 from a section opened up for him, he was able to show clearly that the 

 remains of the Mammoth and the Beindeer were not found in the 

 Boulder- clay, but in certain thin beds underlying the Till, and super- 

 imposed upon the Carboniferous sandstone of the Woodhill quarry. In 

 Dr. Bryce's paper, with section, showing the order of succession of 

 the beds, published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 

 of London for 1855, it is stated "that sevei'al species of marine shells 

 had been found along with some of the tusks," but as these had never 

 been correctly identified the age of the beds had always remained 

 doubtful, and the relations of the "Mammoth" bed to that containing 

 the marine shells was involved in a certain amount of obscurity, which 

 recent discoveries had only enabled the author fully to clear up. 

 From the researches of Mr. Craig, however, and the discovery in the 

 beds of two sets of organisms of difierent origin and age, such as those 



