366 PKOCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, [Feb. 15, 



few miles to the north of the village of Ballater. The average of 

 four different measurements makes the height of it 2953 feet above 

 the sea, the highest value being 3048. It stands many miles apart 

 from any hill of like elevation ; in fact, there is none so high within 

 ten miles ; and it greatly surpasses any eminence to the 1ST. and E. 

 between it and the sea. All the upper part of the mountain, so far 

 as I could ascertain, is composed of one sort of rock, which seems to 

 be a mixture of greenish hornblende and white felspar, showing no 

 stratification-lines. No gneiss, quartz-rock, or granite came under 

 my notice, although the last-mentioned rock occurs about its base. 

 The late Professor Macgillivray had, I find, examined the hill, and 

 pronounced it to be of hornblende-rock. It was therefore with no 

 small degree of wonder that I remarked several rounded boulders of 

 granite, together with some of quartzose gneiss or laminated quartz, 

 lying here and there on the western brow of the mountain ; and I 

 traced them up to the very summit : one or two of them, indeed, are 

 built into the prop or cairn that marks the highest point. The 

 largest of these fragments did not exceed two feet in diameter. 



This then is surely a most remarkable fact : for if we assign the 

 agency of floating ice for the transport of these boulders, perched up 

 here amongst the mist and Ptarmigan, we must admit a submergence 

 to the extent of 3000 feet ; and yet no other feasible theory has been 

 offered that can account for such facts. 



Again, there is a hill close to the village of Braemar named Cairn - 

 a-Drochet, reaching an elevation of 2703 feet, according to Mr. 

 Robertson, author of a large map of Aberdeenshire ; while an aneroid 

 measurement of my own made it 2655. Seventy yards to the north 

 of the cairn that marks the summit, and at a level 20 feet lower, 

 there sits a block of coarse red granite 12 feet in length ; while 

 many boulders of the same kind are scattered all around. Now the 

 upper part of this hill is chiefly composed of quartzose gneiss, inter- 

 sected with dikes and masses of felspar-porphyry ; and although 

 granite also occurs in situ a short way down the hill, yet it is of a 

 different quality from this block, containing a much smaller propor- 

 tion of quartz, while the felspar is of a paler tint ; and upon the whole 

 I think it likely that this block and many of the other boulders near 

 it have been derived from the mountains to the north, the granite 

 of which is identical in character. Still I do not mean to press this 

 too strongly, but would only remark that the fragments of quartz, 

 felspar-porphyry, and granite on the flat top of this hill are mingled 

 together in such a way as to indicate exposure to some shifting- 

 agency, as if they had been washed about together while under water. 

 The felspar-fragments are mostly small and angular, the quartz often 

 partially rounded, and those of the granite frequently quite rounded. 



The only other instance of high-lying fragments, apparently trans- 

 ported from a distance, that I shall here adduce, relates to a moun- 

 tain called Ben Uarn More (3589 feet). It forms the culminating 

 peak of the great ridge that divides the shires of Aberdeen and Perth, 

 and is composed of quartz-rock, showing a laminated structure. No 

 other rock occurred to'me as I clambered up the steep northern slope ; 



