Notices of Memoirs — Geological Survey. 323 



Hill to the west, and Arthur's Seat to the east, which are greenstone 

 eminences not far distant. 



As to the agent producing the grooves, the general impression 

 from their up and down hill course seemed to be that they were 

 caused by the ploughshare in times gone hj, when the locality might 

 have been under cultivation for grass. 



The probabilities against these grooves being due to glacial action 

 rest chiefly upon their not being sraoothened or polished, and their 

 course curving over the rotundity of the upper surface of the 

 boulders, and the starting of some channels by sudden indents in the 

 stones. It may, however, be stated that the overlookers on the 

 works think that some of the boulders lie too deep to have been 

 marked by the old kinds of plough, and that these lie also in undis- 

 turbed subsoil, below the loam on the surface.^ 



The evidence on this subject indicates that No. 1 grooved Boulder 

 and No. 2 were both about three feet below the surface, No. 10 was 

 one foot, and No. 11 was eight inches ; while, again, Nos. 7 and 8 

 grooved Boulders just appeared on the level of the original slope of 

 the ground. 



The Secretary of the Institution has informed me that the grounds 

 have not been used for agricultural purposes since the building of 

 the Hospital in 1738. Previous to that event it was common land, 

 called Heriot's Croft, and was probably meadow land when pur- 

 chased by Watson's Trustees from those of Heriot's Hospital. 



DsroTioiES OIF DyniEiMioiias. 



T.^ — Memoiks of thb Geological Survey. 



WE have much pleasure in stating that Part I. of the Memoir 

 by Mr. W. Whitaker, B.A., F.G.S., on the Geology of the 

 London Basin, has just been published. It occupies over 600 

 pages, and includes an account of the Chalk and the Eocene beds of 

 the Southern and Western Tracts, lying in the counties of Berks, 

 Bucks, Essex, Herts, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, etc., with parts, by 

 H. W. Bristow, r.E.S., Director, T. McK. Hughes, M.A., F.G.S., and 

 notes from other members of the Geological Survey of England. 

 We hope, in a future number, to give a more extensive notice of Mr. 

 Whitaker's work, which, from the amount of detailed information on 

 the Geology, together with the appendices on the Bibliography, Well 

 Sections, and Fossils, cannot fail to be of great practical as well as 

 scientific value. 



• An eminent Scottish Geologist writes to the Editor that " the true glacial striae 

 in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh all go from west to east ; whereas the direction 

 of the striae on the erratics, examined by Mr. Black, appear to go from north to 

 south." This, he thinks, "looks like the plough.." "Striated pavements of 

 Boulders," he adds, " are great rarities ; Hugh Miller has recorded a single instance." 

 — Lyell's Elementary Geology, p. 14:7. Chambers' Papers, Proceed, itoyal Soc. of 

 Edinburgh, April 20th, 1857. 



