512 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 24, 



The clay varies in colour from brick-red to a dull-greenish tint, 

 and predominates over the sand, which is of fine quality and brownish 

 colour. The shells that occur in some of the seams, although ap- 

 parently all in a broken or comminuted state, yet often retain their 

 glossy surface. Those which I found were in very small fragments ; 

 amongst them, however, I could recognize the Cyprina Islandica, 

 Tellina solidula, Saxicava rugosa, Cardium echinatum, and a species 

 of Astarte ; and doubtless others occur. No boulders were seen 

 in these beds of sand and clay. The meeting of the upper bed of 

 gravel with the clay forms a distinct horizontal line, the two masses 

 not mingling where they join. The section here is also not much 

 above the sea-level, although somewhat higher than the last. 

 ■ Large irregular mounds and straggling narrow ridges of coarse 

 gravel abound in this locality, known by the name of the Hills of 

 Fife. I have not met with any shells in this gravel, the base of 

 which seems to rest on the stratified beds. 



A little further on, and we come to the Burn of Millden, along 

 the banks of which we again find the stratified clay and sand crop- 

 ping out. A section, the base of which is probably not more than 

 three feet above high- water mark, shows some 16 feet of alternating 

 layers of pure red clay and fine greyish sand, quite devoid of all 

 stones. These strata are arranged horizontally, and terminate some- 

 what abruptly towards the sea. Their surface indicates considerable 

 denudation ; and on the top of one of the banks, lodged amongst 

 the bent-covered sand which drifts off the adjoining beach, I found 

 two or three boulders of gneiss, granite, and syenitic greenstone, — 

 the largest not exceeding 3^- feet in diameter. Some boulders of 

 granite and trap occur also in the bed of the stream. These may 

 have been left by the agency which denuded the clay. 



A short distance further up the stream, and at a height of pro- 

 bably not more than nine or ten feet above the sea, there is 

 a very small patch of what appears to be the Old Red Sandstone 

 conglomerate, but quite smothered beneath a heavy mass of the 

 stratified sand and clay. 



Mounds and ridges of coarse ferruginous shingle and gravel, all 

 water-rolled, come nearly close up to the top of these banks, as if 

 superimposed abruptly on the stratified beds, — while, a little further 

 north, some small cuttings occasionally show the gravel overlying 

 fine red clay. 



The great mass of shingle, however, retreats inland a short dis- 

 tance here, returning towards the beach at Menie, from whence it 

 may be traced, with hardly any interruption, to the mouth of the 

 Ythan, 



In the neighbourhood of Hopeshill the fields abound with large 

 boulders, mostly of syenitic greenstone and other varieties of trap, 

 similar in quality to rock in situ a few miles to the west. Near the 

 Menie Coast-guard Station I found these large boulders of trap, 

 granite, and gneiss resting on the top and surface of the gravel- 

 ridges (fig. 2), some of them measuring six feet in length, and more 

 or less rounded in form : I traced them also amongst the low 



