OF ELIE AND ERROL. 629 



To hell marked as " C. laevigata most probably, but much injured." Afterwards at 

 Errol the workmen at one place threw them out by spadefuls, well preserved ; and 

 on showing them to Dr Torell, he pronounced them most characteristic examples 

 of the species. He had found the shell very abundantly at Spitsbergen, where it 

 forms a great part of the food of the walrus, the large tusks of the animal being 

 used to dig it out of the clay of the sea-bottom. 



The new species of the Yoldia (No. 11 of the above list) also deserves notice. 

 It is an unpublished species, dredged by Dr T. at Spitzbergen, in 80 degees of 

 north latitude, and the next place where it turns up is this Elie clay. Not less 

 interesting is the Dacrydium vitreiim, a small shell, of which he had dredged a 

 very few specimens in Spitzbergen, and on these had founded the new genus 

 of Dacrydium* The next place where it is met with is the clay at Errol, 

 the deposit thus yielding some even of the rarer species of Arctic shells, whose 

 proper habitat is at Spitzbergen, within about ten degrees of the Pole, and close to 

 the limits of perpetual ice. 



From all the evidence thus obtained, the conclusion will be held to be irre- 

 sistible, that at the time these shells lived this country lay under the most rigorous 

 Arctic climate. Like Greenland or Spitzbergen now, the Scotland of that day 

 was wrapped in snow — a land of glaciers and icebergs. 



In addition to the shells, I obtained from the Errol brickfield portions of the 

 skeleton of a seal, in regard to which Dr M'Batn has favoured me with the fol- 

 lowing note :— " The vertebrae enclosed in the Errol brick-clay are those of a 

 young seal, and, from a comparison of the few detached vertebras, they appear 

 to me to belong to Calocephalus mtulinus. This could only be satisfactorily deter- 

 mined, however, by the discovery of the skull. The loose bones are an atlas the 

 sixth and seventh cervical, and the first dorsal vertebrae. The others are portions 

 of ribs, one with the head and neck, probably the twelfth, and from their size 

 appear to belong to the same individual." 



In regard to the relative levels of land and water, it is plain that at the period 

 of this deposit the country must have been sunk far deeper in the sea than now. 

 The Errol deposit at this moment lies more than 40 feet above high- water mark. 

 No one can look on the shells, as they lie in the clay, without seeing that they 

 are at home — not washed up, but in what was once the sea-bottom, where they 

 lived and died. The old and young are so mixed together — the most tender 

 portions of the epidermis, &c, are so preserved — that this cannot be questioned. 

 Lying, therefore, now 40 feet above high water, a rise to that extent at least is 

 undeniable. But there is much more than that. None of the shells are littoral 

 species ; and the group would, as a whole, require, when alive, a considerable depth 

 of water over them. Much attention has been paid to the range of depth through 

 which the different species live. If this were exactly ascertained, we should 



* Spitsbergens Mollusker I. p. 19. 

 VOL. XXI V. PART III. 8 H 



