Correspondence — Mr. R. Craig. 525 



the wave flows the beach goes. It is the prevalence of south-west 

 winds in the northern hemisphere which runs beaches across the 

 mouths of so many of our south-coast streams, great and small ; and 

 it is a law on the south-coast (quoted in a note by Mr. Whitaker 

 himself) that where a travelling beach comes across an estuary the 

 water escapes by soaking through the beach (the frequent cause of 

 the so-called submerged forest) or by forcing a passage to the east. 

 Notwithstanding this law Mr. Whitaker starts his tlieory of the 

 escape of the Fleet-water eastward as new, and he considers the shingle 

 of the Chesil beach to be in an " anomalous position," his reason 

 for calling it " anomalous" being that the beach is longer than other 

 beaches, and that on the land side "there is no river emptying into 

 the sea, but only a succession of very small streams." But is not a 

 succession of small streams, flowing by one channel into the sea, " a 

 river emptying into the sea?" If Smallmouth sands were raised to 

 the height of the Chesil beach, both being impervious, the Fleet 

 would be a freshwater lake at that height. It would, however, 

 quickly cut an outlet, and form an estuary at the present depth, and 

 the land side of the estuary would of course be denuded as now by 

 rain and rivers like the sides of every other estuary. 



I must not ask for your valuable space to enter farther into the 

 laws of the sea-shore, to describe the cause of the so-called " sub- 

 merged forest," the principles of that most ingenious device the 

 groin, or to explain the cause of the sorting and sizing of the 

 materials of the Chesil beach. These materials decrease most 

 gradually for twenty miles, that is, from the large pebbles at Port- 

 land to the pure blown sand at Bridport. These things are detailed 

 in the eighth chapter of " Eain and Eivers," which is headed 

 " Travelling of Sea-beach," a subject on which profound ignorance 

 prevails. George Gkeenwood, Colonel. 



Brookwood Park, Alkesfoed, 

 ith of October, 1869. 



DISCOVERY OF ARCTIC SHELLS BELOW BOULDER-CLAY, AT 

 WOODHILL, KILMAURS. 



SiK, — In making some observations on the Boulder-clay, in the 

 Kilmarnock district, in the end of Autumn, 1868, I was fortunate 

 in finding a few Arctic shells from a bed of sand lying below the 

 Boulder-clay at Woodhill, Kilmaurs. The shells are now in the 

 Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, and, as recognized by Mr. John 

 Young, the Curator, are Zeda ohlonga, Tellina calcarea, Pecten 

 Islandica, Cyprina Islandica, Astarte sidcata, A. compressa, Natica 

 Grcenlandica, and fragments of a large species of Natica, and a 

 Littorina. They were got in sinking a pit scarcely half-a-mile from 

 the old quarry, where so many elephants' tusks and deer horns were 

 found. The section stands thus— Boulder-clay, fifty-one feet ; sand, 

 with marine shells (the above), one foot three inches; peaty clay, 

 mixed with sand, one foot six inches (this is the bed in which the 

 tusks and horns were found) ; run, or cemented, gravelly sand, one 

 district, and went to considerable expense in getting them properly 



