318 MR MILNE ON THE MID-LOTHIAN AND EAST-LOTHIAN COAL-FIELDS. 



the same bed at Hedderwick, where it is cut through by a burn, shewed a depth 

 of 15 feet. 



In this deposit of clay, there have been found at Portobello organic remains 

 of various kinds. Several large trees were dug out. Unfortunately they were 

 not kept, but on inquiry among the work people, I learn that one of them was 

 20 feet in length, and about 7 feet in circumference. It had a few branches near 

 the top. This was on the top of the clay, where it had formed for itself a sort 

 of bed. Its top was lying towards the S.SE. After exposure to the air for some 

 time, the tree cracked in all dnections, shrivelled up, and then crumbled to 

 pieces. The work-people consider that this one and all the trees which have been 

 found, are oak. In the course of last year I extracted fi-om the clay in two of 

 the brick-works at Portobello several fibres or fragments of wood. They re- 

 semble the roots and branches of a dicotyledonous tree, though of what kind, I 

 am unable to say. They were from 2 to 4 feet below the surface of the clay. 



I learned, also, that hazel-nuts had been frequently found in the PortobeUo 

 clay. They were got on the surface of the bed, and in what is called a parting, 

 which lies between that bed and the superincumbent sand. 



I observe from Mr Blackadder's paper, above referred to, that wood, hazel- 

 nuts, and the leaves of trees, have been found in the carse clay of Falkirk. 



Shells occur, — but very sparingly, in the Portobello clay. I regret much that 

 I have never seen any perfect specimen, though I have often sought and inquired for 

 them. I am therefore obliged, for the following statements, to rely on the informa- 

 tion of the tacksman of the brickwork, Mr Henderson, who seemed, however, an 

 intelligent man. He stated, that the shells were small, of a white colour, and 

 not unlike cockles. They were very tender, he said, and crumbled to pieces when 

 handled. He has found them with both valves adhering, and closed. These 

 shells, it rather appears, do not form a layer, but are indiscriminately inter- 

 spersed through the clay. They have been found to the depth of twenty feet 

 from the surface. The fragments of shells, which I have seen in the clay at Por- 

 tobello, were so imperfect, and so few, that it was impossible to know what they 

 were. 



I was informed also, that in Morton's brick-field at Portobello, which is 

 not now worked, he has found bones nearly as thick as a man's thigh. They 

 were such, he says, as excited the sm'prise of the workmen. That such bones 

 were found, is not unlikely, when it is remembered it was in the Carse clay 

 that whale bones were found, at Airthrey, at Blairdrummond, and at Dun- 

 more. The whale bones at these places were fi-om twenty to thirty feet above 

 the present level of high-water mark. Near Camelon, there were found the bones 

 of a seal, in a bed of clay ninety feet above the sea ; and in a bed of sand be- 

 neath them, were shells of the razor or spout-fish. In Drummond's Agricultural 

 Museum at Stirling, are preserved the head and antlers of a red deer, which, in 



