Vol. 58.| AMONG THE JURASSIC ROCKS OF SUTHERLAND. 311 
isotherm of 32° Fahr. every time that a breccia-bed occurred in the 
series ? The Gartymore section was quoted, where there are three 
breccia-beds intercalated. It was true that the Author did not 
require a complete glacial period in each case: he would be satisfied 
with an ice-foot ; but an ice-foot at the present day is an exclusively 
Polar phenomenon, and would require a corresponding climate. 
An alternative theory was not an absolute necessity, but he thought 
the hint thrown out by the previous speaker a very useful one. 
He had himself pointed out, with reference to Permian and Triassic 
breccias, how powerful currents, in an oscillating area, would help 
to distribute cliff-talus. Oceanic currents, which were strong 
enough to tear up masses of coral, could also disintegrate and 
transport old shore-accumulations. The Author had himself given 
us a glimpse of such a talus in the Gartymore Glen, and the speaker 
thought that the distribution of such material in the way mentioned 
afforded an explanation of the whole mystery. 
Prof. H. G. Srpney remarked that many years after Prof. Judd’s 
classic paper on the ‘ Secondary Rocks of Scotland’ had appeared, 
there was found on the site of the Recreation-Ground at Tunbridge 
Wells a Wealden clay presenting characters of Boulder-Clay, but 
containing fragments of sandstone all of which were angular. 
These were evidently transported by the action of water, and the 
deposit was an instance of what that action could accomplish. 
Until all the ordinary methods of transport proved inadequate to 
account for the Sutherland breccia-beds, he would hesitate to accept 
the hypothesis of ice-action. 
Dr. F. A. Baruerr said that, after examination of the district in 
1885, he had come to the same conclusion as that expressed by 
Mr. Woodward. The idea of an ice-foot had not Occurred to him, but 
the intermittent formation of breccia had seemed due to the fact that 
the beds were deposited along an irregularly sinking cliff coast-line, 
where the fall of overhanging masses was succeeded by their partial 
distribution over the shelving floor, the smaller fragments being 
rounded, until the process was checked by a sudden influx of mud, 
due perhaps to the estuarine conditions imagined by Prof. Judd. 
The formation of breccia only recurred when further sinking brought 
the talus from a fresh cliff-surface within reach of the currents. 
South of Lothbeg the railway had cut through a marine grit-bed, in 
which were numerous angular fragments of a soft yellow sandstone, 
as though they had sunk down into the sand where they fell. 
Might not the contortion of the shale shown in fig. 8 have been 
due to ice-pressure at a much later period ? 
The PresipEnt said that the facts brought forward by the Author 
were certainly of extreme interest from the geological point of 
view, and there could be little doubt of the reasonableness of his 
opinion that the ‘ breccia-beds’ were made up of the angular 
waste or screes of steep cliffs, formed of Old Red Sandstone like 
that of the neighbourhood ; while the occurrence of marine shells 
and land-plants in the associated Kimeridgian shales showed that 
the sea-shore of the time must have run along this line, or very near 
