26 MR. T. F. JAMIESON ON THE [Feb. I906, 



be seen ; but that, about 50 years before the date of his report, a 

 commencement had been made towards improving it. The expense 

 of trenching and clearing the ground of stones and afterwards 

 manuring it, often amounted to <£50 or £Q0 an acre before a crop 

 could be put in. Some fields, indeed, he says, cost ,£100 an acre. 

 Yet, strange to say, the operation proved a profitable one. The 

 demand for granite-stones to London about that time was so great 

 as to help materially to make the enterprise pay. 



On the lands of Nigg and Loirston, on the south side of the Dee, 

 where the right flank of the glacier rested, the big stones cleared 

 off the ground are so numerous that they have to be piled into what 

 are locally termed consumption-dykes. These consist of two 

 parallel stone-walls, 4 to 6 feet high, with a space of 10 to 12 feet 

 between them, into which the stones are piled. These stones are of 

 all sizes, up to 3 or 4 feet in length, and some larger. As an instance 

 I may give the following : from 12 acres of land on the farm of North 

 Loirston, the quantity of stones taken off formed a consumption-dyke 

 (as I was told by the late Prof. Dickie) 300 yards long, 30 to 35 feet 

 broad, and 6 feet high ; in addition to which smaller stones were 

 got to fill the furrow-drains, which were made 24 feet apart. 



This last glacier of the Dee Valley must have protruded beyond 

 the present coast-line. Its northern flank lay in the parish of 

 Belhelvie, about 5 or 6 miles north of Aberdeen, where there is a 

 great accumulation of gravel-mounds running inland, from a place on 

 the coast called the Black Dog, to Parkhill in the parish of New 

 Machar. These gravel-mounds rest upon the wasted top of the Red 

 Clay at Milden and the Black Dog. At the latter place the clay is 

 now dug for the manufacture of bricks and drainpipes. The right 

 flank of the glacier lay on the hills of Nigg, which form the southern 

 border of the Dee. In the intermediate space between Aberdeen 

 and the Black Dog, the Red Clay has been swept clean away, causing 

 a gap in it 4 or 5 miles wide. 



Even in the little valley of the Ythan, there is evidence of Glacial 

 action subsequent to the Red-Clay epoch. This valley is about 

 half way between Aberdeen and Peterhead, and takes its rise among 

 hills only a few hundred feet in height; consequently, it is difficult 

 to believe that it could have originated anything like a true 

 glacier. Perhaps the facts can be explained by the melting of deep 

 masses of snow and ice, or it may be that a lobe or offshoot of the 

 Moray-Firth ice came down this way. Anyhow, the Red Clay 

 has been much wasted, and covered in places by masses of coarse 

 gravel, and sometimes by a profusion of large stones 2 to 4 feet in 

 length. At Michael Moor, a few miles to the west of Ellon, there 

 is a sheet of this gravel in which the stones are so large and 

 plentiful, that the agriculturist in clearing the ground has been 

 obliged to form them into broad consumption-dykes, and farther 

 up the river something like miniature lateral moraines occur. At 

 Ellon, in some places big stones 3 to 4 feet long are found in 

 great number, just at the bottom of the gravel and lodged on the top 

 of the fine Red Clay. 



