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



Feet. 



1 . Blackish loamy earth 1 



2. Reddish-brown clay, apparently devoid of stratifi- 



cation or lamination, and containing stones of 

 various kinds, and of all sizes up to A\ feet in 

 diameter ; often striated and grooved on the sur- 

 face 30 to 40 



3. Clay of a brick-red colour and finer nature, and 



apparently free from boulders 1 to 2 



4. Very fine, laminated, dark-brownish clay, quite free 



from stones 2 to 4 



5. Fine brownish-grey sand, devoid of all stones or 



pebbles of any kind : the bottom of it has not 

 been reached ; but it has been penetrated to a 

 depth of 20 



The foreman of the work told me that this finely-stratified clay 

 and sand had occurred regularly at the base of the bank all along, 

 covered deeply by the coarser clay with boulders. The fine sand 

 at the base of the bank must extend beneath the sea-level. The 

 stones which I found in the deep mass of boulder-clay were of 

 granite — both red and grey, crystalline schist of different varieties, 

 greenstone and other kinds of trap, sandstone, and flints. The 

 largest block was of a fine-grained, tough, greenish rock, A\ feet 

 long by 2\ feet broad and \\ thick. It was rough and angular on 

 all sides but one, which was smooth and worn, as if it had been 

 rubbed strongly over some hard surface. There were several sets 

 of scratches, grooves, and furrows, mostly short, and tending in one 

 general direction, viz. parallel to the longest diameter of the block. 

 The granite-blocks were generally more rounded, and occasionally 

 grooved, but much less distinctly ; those of greenstone are also oc- 

 casionally smoothed and scratched. The largest piece of sandstone 

 was greyish, moderately fine-grained, measuring in feet 3 X 2 x 1, an- 

 gular and rough on the surface. 



Many of the boulders are striated on all their sides. The stones 

 in this upper bed of clay do not bear a very large proportion to the 

 whole mass ; so that the clay is used for making bricks and tiles 

 after the stones are extracted. In this boulder-clay I found also 

 traces of broken shells, occurring in films of coarse reddish sand in 

 various parts of the deposit. I also picked a broken fragment of 

 shell out of the finely-laminated clay No. 4. 



Several years ago, the skeleton of a bird was found in this bank, 

 at a depth, it is said, of 25 feet from the surface, and about 15 or 

 20 feet above the level of the sea. I have not hitherto discovered 

 what became of this skeleton. When in search of it, in the Ar- 

 buthnot Museum, Peterhead, I found an organic remain with the 

 following label : — " Fossil vertebra found in excavating clay at the 

 Brickwork, Peterhead, August 1825, 38 feet below the surface, 

 placed on what has been the sea-beach." The words in italics 

 were somewhat indistinct, the ink being much faded. This fossil 



