Anniversary Address. 175 



effectually on the material of softer consistency. The ridges 

 themselves are much rubbed and planed, especially on the 

 north-west exposures, as if some mighty force had battered 

 and grated them down. There were also indications of 

 strise, which bore by compass nearly north or north-half- 

 west ; in this agreeing exactly with the strise at St. Abb's 

 Head and the Fame Islands. On a subsequent day, a 

 grooved and polished rock face, such as marks the passage 

 of glaciers or icebergs, was noticed on the edge of the cliff 

 near Earnsheugh, not so high up as those triturated surfaces 

 just alluded to ; the boulder clay which had protected it 

 from atmospheric action having fallen down and left it 

 exposed. It faces the north-west. Two well-worn boulders 

 were found among the parallel ridges, which must have 

 come from a great distance, probably East Lothian. They 

 were both varieties of basaltic green-stone, with large horn- 

 blende crystals. It was also afterwards ascertained that a 

 very perfect fragment of Stigmaria, composed of sandstone, 

 had been picked up on Harelaw, one of the St. Abb's 

 heights, as if freshly detached from its receptacle and not 

 at all rolled. Mr. Milne Home considered that these 

 appearances had been occasioned by a sea standing 460 or 

 470 feet above the present level, over which floated icebergs 

 loaded with debris and rock fragments, and mentioned 

 various other concurrent instances from the district, which 

 confirmed his views. The other members entered on their 

 survey at Petticowick, at the extreme limits of the Head. 

 A fine view is here obtained of the bold, rugged coast, 

 sweeping away round in an irregular circuit till near Fast- 

 Castle. James Melville commemorates the delicious spring 

 of water still existing here ; having in the reign of James VI., 

 in June, 1854, when flying in an open boat from the power 

 of his persecutor Arran, to the friendly shelter of Berwick, 

 been obliged, by stress of weather and to conceal the boat 

 for the night, to take refuge in this haven. After sore 

 battling with the blast " it fell down dead calm about the sun 



