The Ancient Lakes of Edinburgh. 13a 
by the waters of an ancient lake, as the sections which I will 
detail will prove. Upon the rock head lay 3 or 4 feet of 
boulder clay ; above this were several feet of sandy clay in 
which were two layers of peat, one about two inches, the 
other about a foot in thickness. What lay upon the sandy 
clay was uncertain, as the ground had been much disturbed 
by alterations caused by the operations of the quarrymen, 
and sometimes quarry débris rested on it, and sometimes 
what seemed to be natural soil, and at one place a patch 
of boulder clay which, seemingly in its natural position, 
would indicate an interglacial position for the old lake 
silts and peat. But that this sandy clay with its layers of 
peat belonged to some of the later stages of the glacial period 
is certain, as in the middle of it were two trap boulders 
standing side by side, each about 6 feet in height, and 2 or 3 
feet in diameter, and only 4 or 5 inches apart. They seemed 
as if they had been originally only one, and had been split in 
two in situ. Round these boulders the sandy clay had been 
deposited, and the gap between was filled with vegetable 
matter which had grown in the lake, and been drifted 
into the gap or slit. Now it was in the laminated 
clay at the bottom of these old lake deposits that the 
shells and Ostracoda were fcund, and within 2 feet or 
so of the base of these boulders under which the laminated 
clay extended. 
- From the washings of the peat many seeds were obtained, 
25 species of which have been determined by Mr C. Reid; 
and also many insect remains, chiefly beetles, niné species of 
which have been determined by Mr C. O. Waterhouse of the 
British Museum. There was no marl in this old glacial 
lake of Hailes, and the shells and Ostracoda occurred in 
silt. . | 
There are other evidences which may be stated here that 
seem to prove that the peats and silt found in the north- 
east corner of Hailes Quarry were deposited in an interglacial 
lake, or perhaps more correctly in the lake-like expansions 
of a water-course or river. In 1886 a tirring in the south- 
west corner of Hailes Quarry, directly beneath the farmhouse 
of Kingsknowe, showed in section, first, upon the rock head 
