264 An Account of the Excursions (19 10). [Sess. 



intendent, Dr Keay, and conducted over the electric power 

 station, the industrial homes, the farm, and .waterworks. Dr 

 Keay, in pointing out the objects of interest, mentioned that 

 his house was built on the site of the old Bangour mansion, 

 where William Hamilton, the poet, was born in 1704, and 

 there one of his best known poems, " The Braes of Yarrow," 

 was written. The members were afterwards entertained to 

 tea in the large store-hall. A vote of thanks was given to 

 Dr Keay for his kindness, and to Mr Brotherston for having 

 originated the excursion. Before leaving, the members visited 

 the artificial ponds where the sewage of the establishment 

 undergoes a process of purification. 



On the following Saturday there was a joint excursion 

 with the Dunfermline naturalists to Aberdour. The mem- 

 bers of the two Societies met on the arrival of the train at 

 Aberdour, and a large party walked to the harbour, where 

 the leader, Mr T. C. Day, pointed out the features of the 

 shore, especially the contact metamorphism caused by the 

 intrusive dolerites on the shales and sandstones. He ex- 

 plained that the dolerite of Hawk Craig was an igneous rock, 

 and had been intruded in a molten state among the sand- 

 stones and shales of the district. The intense heat of the 

 molten rock had greatly modified the sandstones and shales, 

 these having been much hardened. One important point of 

 this section is the great distance to which this hardening of 

 the local rocks has extended. In many cases, where the 

 intrusive mass is even greater than at this spot, the harden- 

 ing of the rocks is comparatively small in extent, as at 

 Salisbury Crags. It was suggested that perhaps the cause 

 of this might arise from the fact that where the modification 

 of the local rocks was great, the whole body of rock was at 

 a comparatively high temperature at the time of intrusion, 

 while, on the other hand, where the heat metamorphism of 

 the local rocks was small, the intrusion took place when 

 these rocks were at a comparatively low temperature. A 

 curious feature of the sections is the form and appearance 

 of the metamorphosed sandstones at the base (Plate XVII., 

 fig. 1). In cooling from the high temperature to which they 

 had been subjected they have assumed a roughly columnar 



