Freshwater Limestone in Forfarshire, 5fc. 87 



situ of those red argillaceous beds^ belonging; to the old red-sandstone^ termed 

 calm. 



The marl, before it was worked out, was thickest at the west end of the 

 lake, where the springs are most numerous. It is usually divided into two 

 beds by an intervening layer of clay, from 1 to 2 feet thick. The upper bed 

 abounds in shells, of the very same species that occur in the Bakie ; and these 

 shells, like those of the Bakie, are the growth of young testacea, scarcely one 

 in ten being full-sized. In the lower bed the shells have disappeared; or if 

 any exist, they are very rare. In this bed the seed-vessels of Charas are 

 abundant. In those specimens which I have found, belonging to Chara his- 

 pida, the outer integument is not fossilized, as it is in those enveloped by the 

 rock-marl of the Bakie ; though still it is more calcareous than in the living 

 plant. The nut is always found within, black and much shrunk from decay. 

 The marl from both the beds is argillaceous, and contains a less per-centage 

 of lime than most of that from the Bakie. Scales of mica are frequent in it, 

 and it is usually divisible into thin laminae, between which the flattened stems 

 of vegetables occur in great abundance. 



The clay which separates the two beds of marl is generally reddish, and 

 has been derived, apparently, from the calm. Like the marl, it divides into 

 thin leaves. From this texture, I am disposed to believe that it was deposited 

 gradually, and not that it resulted from a single influx of mud. While the 

 clayey matter remained suspended in the water, the testacea must have been 

 unable to live ; and this may not improbably be the cause why the clay con- 

 tains neither shells nor calcareous matter. 



In the upper bed of marl, during the last autumn, the skeleton of a stag 

 (Cervus elaphus) of large dimensions was dug out. The horns had 9 branches, 

 and weighed, when dry, nearly 18 pounds. The skeleton was in a vertical po- 

 sition ; the tips of the horns reaching nearly to the surface of the marl, and 

 the feet nearly two yards below. The marl was immediately covered by 

 peat, in which also the skeletons of stags are occasionally discovered. Since 

 the bones of quadrupeds are frequently met with in the marl by the workmen, 

 much knowledge may be obtained of the former post-diluvian wild inhabitants 

 of this country, by paying to the subject that attention which it deserves*. 



* In the summer of 1820 a canoe was found in the peat, one extremity being scarcely below 

 the surface [see PI. X. fig. 2.]. It was formed out of a single block of oak ; its length from 

 head to stern was 15 feet, its width within 3 feet. There were no marks of thowels or row-locks 

 on the sides for rowing ; so that it appears to have been paddled like a canoe, which it resembled 

 in form. There is a seat for the boatman near the stern. The prow had evidently been carved 

 into an ornamental shape, representing, apparently, the head of some animal. The stern was 



