Geological  Society.  189 
in  South  Africa.  With  these  varying  heights  he  correlates  the 
topography  of  the  bordering  continents — the  sharp  divides,  open, 
river-valleys,  permanent  rivers  and  deltas,  of  Europe  and  America, 
where  the  movement  has  been  downward  and  has  almost  reached 
bottom,  in  contrast  with  the  flat  undenuded  divides,  the  steep,  narrow 
gorges,  the  waterfalls,  and  the  rocky  river-gates,  of  South  Africa, 
which  is  on  the  upgrade  and  probably  near  the  top. 
2.  '  The  Glacial  Period  in  Aberdeenshire  and  the  Southern 
Border  of  the  Moray  Firth.'     By  Thomas  F.  Jamieson,  F.G.S. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  features  in  the  Glacial  geology 
of  Aberdeenshire  is  the  Red  Clay  found  along  the  eastern  coast  of 
the  county.  It  consists  of  red  sediment  brought  by  ice  flowing 
along  the  coast  from  south  to  north,  which  also  carried  rocks  from 
the  coast  between  Montrose  and  Lunan  Bay.  The  clay  is  some- 
times finely  laminated  ;  at  other  times  it  is  mixed  with  stones  ;  and 
at  times,  again,  contains  esker-like  mounds  of  gravel.  It  includes 
fragments  of  Crag-shells  and  of  Mesozoic  limestone.  The  purer 
masses  of  clay  seem  to  have  formed  in  a  sheet  of  water  lying  in 
front  of  the  ice,  between  it  and  the  land,  during  the  retreat  of  the 
Aberdeenshire  ice,  and  at  a  time  when  the  coast  was  submerged 
beneath  water  to  a  level  exceeding  300  feet  above  the  present 
coast-line.  Evidence  of  the  northward  motion  of  the  ice  is  given 
from  striae,  the  transport  and  removal  of  flints,  and  the  bending-over 
of  the  edges  of  folia  of  gneiss.  The  red  clay  is  underlain  by  a  grey 
clay,  and  sometimes  covered  by  a  similar  one.  The  author  has 
recently  discovered  remains  of  a  still  older,  dark  indigo  in  colour, 
and  containing  small  fragments  of  sea-shells.  This  has,  however, 
been  swept  away  in  most  places  by  subsequent  ice-movement. 
In  Banffshire  a  fine  dark  clay  seems  to  have  been  formed  under 
the  same  circumstances  as  the  Bed  Clay  of  Aberdeenshire.  The 
only  evidence  of  warm  intervals  in  this  part  of  Scotland  is 
that  inferred  from  the  melting-away  of  the  masses  of  ice,  which 
preceded  and  followed  the  deposition  of  the  Red  Clay  and  the  shell- 
beds  of  Clava. 
On  the  southern  border  of  the  Moray  Firth  the  author  gives 
examples  of  Glacial  marking  on  the  rocks,  and  refers  to  the 
transport  of  boulders,  including  a  huge  mass  of  Oolitic  rocks 
40  feet  thick,  a  mass  of  clay  once  considered  to  be  an  outlier 
of  Lias,  '  pipe-rock,'  and  the  fossiliferous  Greensand  debris  at 
Moreseat,  now  considered  to  have  been  transported  by  ice.  The 
ice  appears  to  have  been  4000  to  5000  feet  thick  about  Inverness, 
in  order  to  reach  to  and  overflow  Mormond  in  jNorth-Eastern 
Aberdeenshire.  The  terraces  of  gravel  found  at  decreasing  heights 
on  the  Spey,  near  Rothes,  seem  to  have  been  formed  during  stops 
in  the  retreat  of  the  ice.     Arctic  shells  of  deep-water  type,  found 
