Vol. 6?.] GLACIAL PERIOD IN ABERDEENSHIRE, ETC. 35 



At Turriff, 10 miles south-east of Banff, there is a mass of 

 dark blackish-blue clay on the south-eastern brow of an eminence 

 about 330 feet high, known as the Market-Hill. It has been 

 dug for the manufacture of bricks and drainpipes, is a pure solid 

 clay devoid of stones, and shows no distinct stratification or 

 lamination. At the time of my visit, I found it to be 13 feet thick 

 at the deepest place, and was told by the manager of the works 

 that it passes down into a dark bluish silt or sandier clay. It 

 has an irregular surface, as if it had suffered denudation, and 

 was covered by a few feet of gravelly earth of a lighter brownish 

 colour. It is not seen on the western slope of the hill. No shells 

 or fossils had been found in it. There is a tract of low ground 

 running from the eastern coast of Aberdeenshire up the Ythan 

 Yalley to Turriff, and then down the Deveron Valley to the coast 

 at Banff. The summit-level of this hollow between the Ythan and 

 the Deveron, where it is very narrow, is only about 180 feet above 

 the sea, or perhaps a trifle less, wherefore a submergence of 200 feet 

 would connect the basin of the Moray .Firth with the sea on the 

 eastern coast of Aberdeenshire by a channel of water crossing the 

 country in a curving line from south-east to north-west. The Moray- 

 Firth ice, when at its maximum, probably sent a lobe down this 

 way, but during the period of submergence it would be occupied by 

 water. 



The shells at Gamrie, on the Banffshire coast, occur in a deep 

 mass of fine sand containing seams of fine dark clay, forming a 

 large mound rising to a height of nearly 300 feet above the sea, 

 and resting upon a cliff of sandstone-rock about 80 feet high facing 

 the bay. In the course of two visits I collected nearly thirty species 

 of shells. They seemed to be confined pretty much to one seam in 

 the sand, but as there is a want of sections in the upper part of the 

 deposit, they may very likely occur there also. The group, as a 

 whole, closely resembles that found at King Edward. The com- 

 monest were Astarte borealis, Cyprina isiandica, Tellina proxima, 

 Tellina ballhica, Cardium groenlandicum, Bela turricula, and Natica 

 groenlandica. The shells are very tender and much decayed, conse- 

 quently they are apt to go to pieces, especially the larger bivalves ; but 

 many of the smaller valves and the univalves are entire. In some 

 places there is a good deal of shelly debris in the sand. The specimens 

 of Tellina proximo, are numerous, some few of them with the valves 

 connected by the ligament and shut. These were filled with sand. 

 Size generally large; many of the valves measured 1| to 1J inches 

 in length. The Astarte was of all sizes down to very young spe- 

 cimens, and in detached valves, the larger ones in fragments. The 

 Cyprina was of various sizes, always in fragments. Bela and Natica 

 were often entire. All the shells had lost their epidermis. Frag- 

 ments of Balanus also occurred, some foraminifera, and the otolith 

 of a fish. ^ 



The nature of the section I found to be as follows, commencing 

 at the bottom : — 



d2 



