S30 Rev. P. Meams on the Kaim at Wark. 



to the nurse's aims ere he can balance himself to walk. 

 The kaim at Wark has hitherto been overlooked by scientific 

 explorers ; but as it Avas lately visited by the Berwickshire 

 Naturalists' Club, which has several members well qualified 

 to give an accurate account of its structure and origin, we 

 may expect to hear more of it by and bye.* 



As to theories of formation, they are only such as apply 

 to all similar ridges, modified by local circumstances, for no 

 writer has yet applied them to this. It has been suggested 

 that a thick covering of sand and gravel was spread over a 

 large space, and that, by a sudden emergence of the land, 

 the water rushed ofi", and left considerable ridges. We can 

 hardly conceive of the broad vale of the Tweed, at this point, 

 as a mere cut or gutter in a great gravel bed, and the oppo- 

 site banks are materially different from this ridge. Besides, 

 there is internal evidence, that the kaim was deposited in 

 the form in which it now exists. A kindred theory has 

 been suggested — that a stream may have acted on each side 

 at different times, gradually reducing the bed of gravel till it 

 assumed the form of a ridge. This would suppose the Tweed 

 to have run at one time on the south side of the kaim — a 

 supposition which has been formed and expressed by some 

 independently of our present question. So far as I can 

 see, nothing of importance can be said in favour of the 

 southerly course, nor can anything very definite be produced 

 against it. But in opposition to the idea that the course of 

 the river in the least degree affected the form of the kaim, 

 two very conclusive arguments may be stated. 



1. At the bottom of the gravel pit the strata are seen to 

 dip towards the south from the very centre of the ridge 

 giving it its present form; whereas a section made by a 

 flowing stream would have beon perpendicular, and if after- 

 wards reduced to a slope by the crumbling of loose materials 

 under the action of the atmosphere it would have been un- 

 stratified. The cross section shows that the sloping strata, 

 which form the abrupt declivity of the ridge, are more 

 numerous than those in the centre. I counted 16 distinct 

 strata in 9 feet of perpendicular depth. The section of a bed 

 of gravel formed by a rapid stream is perpendicular, but it 

 is modified by the character of the current. If inclined 

 at an angle the strata do not show the same angle. The 



* The Club examined it with great interest as a remarkable deposit of a former 

 a, (See Transactions for 1863.) 



