138 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
bogbean and many spores of Isoetes. This compressed 
peaty layer was distinctly laminated, and seemed to consist 
wholly of stems of reeds. It lay partly on several large trap- 
boulders, and partly in the hollow spaces between them, 
showing that it had been deposited on an uneven bed out of 
which the boulders protruded. (3.) The next layer was a 
mud or silt, three or four inches in thickness at the north 
end of the section, but increasing to as many feet at the 
south end—only rootlets were found in several samples of 
it. (4) A bed of peat about three feet in thickness in the 
middle of the section where it was best exposed and most 
typical. The peat consisted chiefly of vegetable mud or 
earth felted with mosses or reed stems or simple vegetable 
fibres, probably the compressed rootlets of plants. From 
being felted with these it would not dissolve or separate, and 
had to be crushed mechanically by the hand in water, which 
made the washing and separating of the seeds and other 
things from the -matrix rather laborious, but the labour was 
well repaid by the extraordinary number of seeds, insect 
remains, chiefly beetles ; and cases of caddis worms of two or 
three forms, one of which was in hundreds or rather thou- 
sands. Full lists of all, we hope, may form the subject of a 
future paper, when the identification of the whole is com- 
pleted. The uppermost six inches of this bed was even 
more felted with mosses and reed stems, some parts consist- 
ing wholly of them cemented by a little reddish-brown mud. 
A small quantity of the finest portion of this mud was 
examined in 1887 for Diatoms by Mr R. Kidston and 
Dr J. Rae, R.N., who found in it about 40 species, a list 
of which—as determined by them—is given at page 154, 
Throughout the whole of this peat-bed stones were fre- 
quent, mostly sandstones and trap, but a few were of 
silurian grit or ereywacke. (5.) Above this peat-bed stood, 
in section, 10 or 12 feet of stony clay, but being nearly 
covered by vegetation its character was not visible at a 
glance, though there could be little doubt it was boulder 
clay. Near the southern end of the peat-bed is an assemblage 
of waterworn boulders with gravel, resting on the rock, and 
it is likely that, as at Hailes,a river with quiet lake ex- 
