^-^^ PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 7, 



specimens of this drift from the Haster Bum had, upon microscopical 

 exammation, yielded him abundance of Foraminifem and other mi- 

 nute remains of animal life. Mr. Anderson was the first to apply 

 the test of washing and microscopic examination to the Caithness 



?"? '^,^ ^''- ^^^""^ ®^^^ *^^* ^^^ *^^ samples tried from between 

 John Groats and Wick had yielded them in this way more or fewer 

 Fommmifera, Entomostraca, &c. 



6. Absence of Moraines and Gravel-Ulhchs.—l saw no abrupt 

 mounds of gravel and boulders in Caithness, nothing like the Kaims 

 or Esker ndges, nor anything like a moraine. Mr. Dick told me he 

 had noticed some gravel-hillocks near Dirlet, but nowhere else 

 Circumstances prevented me from exploring the neighbourhood of 

 Morven and the adjoining hiUs, but in a walk along the Berriedale 

 Wen, Irom the base of the Scarabins to the sea, I observed no mo- 

 raines. This part of the glen is deep, narrow, and winding. There 

 is a good deal of unstratified reddish-brown stony earth in some 

 places along the foot of the hills, in which some ice-scratched stones 

 occur, and where the mouth of the glen opens upon the sea there is 

 a great depth of it on the south bank. Large boulders of many 

 ditterent kinds— gramte, sandstone, conglomerate, quartzose mica- 

 schist— occur here, also fragments of shelly limestone, and bits of 

 dark sandstone containing lignite. Most of this accumulation of 

 drift has a reddish-brown colour, but there is also a mixture of 

 dark bluish-grey stuif, in which after some search I got nine or ten 

 smaU pieces of shell and a bit of a Balanus. This drift is like- 

 wise to be seen on the face of the sea-cliffs on the north side of the 

 stream. 



There is also, so far as I observed, very little valley-gravel: in- 

 deed I am inclined to think that the valley-gravel, such as we find 

 It m the midland region of Scotland, is not developed in Caithness, 

 ihat which occurs m the ruts of the various streams is merely what 

 might be produced by the long-continued action of currents such as 

 we see flowing m them at present. The gravel in these channels 

 seems to be merely the stones derived from the banks of drift along 

 their course, the finer sediment having been washed away by the 

 current. So far as I saw, these beds of gravel are not extensive, and 

 are confined to the bottom of the channels in which the streams run 

 These watercourses are trenches which appear to have been cut out 

 01 the drift by ordinary river-action. 



7. Relation of the Caithness Drift to that of the rest of Scotland.— 

 Caithness, therefore, differs from the midland region of Scotland in 

 regard to its glacial phenomena : — 



1st. In that the glaciation of its rocks seems to have been pro- 

 duced by a movement of ice proceeding, not from the interior of the 

 country, but apparently from an external region to the north-west 



2nd. In its covering of drift, which resembles the Old Boulder-clay 

 of the middle of Scotland in regard to its physical arrangement, but 

 diff-ers therefrom m the prevalence of marine organisms scattered 

 through it. 



3rd. In the absence of glacial-marine beds deposited with the 



