312 INLIER IN THE JURASSIC OF SUTHERLAND. [| May 1902, 
it. He did not consider, however, that a complete case had been made 
out tor the existence of an ice-foot here at the period of deposition 
of these peculiar breccia-beds. Nevertheless, it was as well to bear 
in mind that the presence of plants or of marine organisms, sug- 
gestive of warm climatic conditions, in the geological formations 
that include rocks for which a glacial origin is claimed, had long 
been recognized, as for example the Talchirs of India and the 
Bacchus-Marsh beds of Australia. But he rather preferred, for his 
own part, to look upon these Scottish breccia-beds as having been 
formed along a sinking coast—as already pointed out by the previous 
speaker. The angular fragments might have been rapidly buried 
by muds or sands, and so preserved from the effects of ordinary 
wave-action. : 
The AurHor expressed regret that he had not made his meaning 
clear, as speakers who suggested a cliff-talus as the origin of the 
breccia-beds really adopted his own views; but there was more 
requiring explanation, namely, the spreading-out into masses of uni- 
form thickness and the angularity of the fragments. Cliff-taluses were 
forming with more or less rapidity all along the rocky sea-margins, 
but the breccia-beds had extraordinary characters, and could not 
therefore be the result of ordinary causes. 
He admitted that the Upper Jurassic fauna indicated a compara- 
tively warm climate, and that that of Sutherland, which was the 
northernmost locality of the deposits of the period, indicated one of 
the warmest. This led to the conclusion, enunciated in the paper, 
that the fauna belonged to the locality, but the breccia-fragments 
had for the most part been derived from a distance. The transport 
without rounding was by means of broken masses of ice-foot, some 
of which had been known to travel 1300 miles before melting. 
Fragments from such masses would fall vertically down, or, if the 
unmelted parts of the masses stranded, they would pucker up the 
sea-bottom. 
The explanation offered for these breccia-beds in Sutherland would 
not necessarily apply to any other breccia; but the Author thanked 
the President for his allusion to Glacial beds in Australia associated 
with plants, being convinced that the knowledge of the phenomena 
seen in other lands was the only means of understanding those 
of our own. 
