Anniversary Address. 97 



Messrs. Wm. Brown, Melrose, Edward Allen, Alnwick, 

 and Adam Matheson, Jedburgh, were proposed for mem- 

 bership. 



The walk of the day was across the high moorlands to the 

 Bedshiel Kaim, the party returning to Greenlaw along the 

 course of the Blackadder. Some members extended their 

 observations to the sections exposed in the railway cuttings 

 below Greenlaw, and to the ridge of basalt at Hume Castle. 



The day was very favourable for the examination of the 

 kaim, and in this, the party was much assisted by Mr Wm. 

 Cunningham. In several sections, the materials of which 

 this remarkable ridge is composed were noticed. Deposits 

 of gravel and sand were seen to be distinctly but irregularly 

 stratified. Three^fourths of the gravel were rolled pebbles of 

 greywacke from the Cambro-silurian formation of the Lam- 

 mermoor hills, mingled with others of old red sandstone, por- 

 phyry, amygdaloids, and a very few of basalt. The form of the 

 kaim has been described in former numbers, and a paper by 

 the president discusses the theory of their formation. Here 

 it may be further noticed, that in the kaim itself no polished 

 and scratched blocks have as yet been discovered, but if 

 search be made in the lower part of the ridge they may pro- 

 bably be found, for similar sand and gravel deposits are cut 

 through by the railway near Greenlaw, and there one polish- 

 ed and scratched block was discovered, A similar discovery 

 was made last year in the ridge at Hoppen in Northumber- 

 land, which is a kaim of smaller dimensions than those in 

 Berwickshire. Ice action therefore has very probably been 

 brought into play when the kaims were deposited. 



On both sides of the kaim there is a moss or peat deposit, 

 which is in some parts 12 feet in depth. Formerly peat was 

 dug out, dried and carried on asses' backs into Greenlaw, 

 and sold for domestic use; but the introduction of coal caused 

 the peatary to be abandoned. As the conditions of moisture 

 and cold still continue in this elevated region, the growth of 

 mosses and the accumulation of peat have gone on in this 

 deserted peatary, and have furnished data, from which it has 



