88 Report of Meetings foi' 1879, by James Hardy. 



x^lnwick Mechanics' Institute, on the Natural History of the Por- 

 poise ; it being his custom to seize all such opportune emergencies 

 for conveying positive instruction. 



The walking party by the line of coast soon after arrived, and 

 ■we may now take up the account of what they had accomplished 

 from the minute narrative of Mr Thomson, who had accompanied 

 them. They first visited a camp on the green height above Aln- 

 mouth, where they also met with traces of a small circular fort 

 of about 30 feet in diameter on the southern part of the hill. 

 They then walked down to the links, which others of the com- 

 pany had visited in the morning. They passed on to a sandy 

 beach where numerous large boulders of whinstone were 

 scattered about ; and then encountered a bed of limestone 

 characterised by a profusion of Encrinites, popularly termed St. 

 Cuthbert's beads. Above high water mark the vegetation was 

 singularly uninteresting, bracken being the predominant consti- 

 tuent. ''At Seaton House Point, a small promontory formed 

 mainly of hard, coarse, gritty sandstone, the markings of glacial 

 action were seen on many boulder stones. The sandstone in 

 some places was exceedingly coarse, many of the strata being 

 almost entirely 'pudding-stone,' the 'plums' in which were 

 very large. On 'rounding the point the sandstone changed both 

 its character and its colour, becoming a finer gritted white, some- 

 times being tinged by a deep tawny yellow as if igneous action 

 had caused it. Boulmer, celebrated for being the principal re- 

 sort of smugglers in the olden time, was now in full view. 

 Though the smuggling has now happily ceased, smuggled 

 articles, such as silks and casks of spirits, are sometimes dug up, 

 having been deposited there in bygone times, and been forgotten 

 by their owners. A number of fishing boats were lying in the 

 little harbour, and several men were busy netting salmon. Be- 

 fore we reached Boulmer there was a stretch of the coast extend- 

 ing to about 200 yards in length, where the only plants were 

 Honheneja peploides and Cakile maritima. Prom the low cliffs north 

 of Boulmer the limestone was seen sloping out into the sea. 

 Shortly after this there is a considerable expanse of greyish red 

 sandstone, which stretches levelly out to sea. In the tiny lagoons 

 which dotted its surface were perhaps twenty large herons, two 

 or three herring gulls, a dozen common gulls, and a great num- 

 ber of plovers and lapwings. The sandstone a little way further 



