346 Mr. Bowman on Natural Terraces 



The Rotifer vulgaris travels quite at his ease in these pro- 

 tuberances; he traverses the partitions, displaces the chromule 

 and pushes it to the two extremities of the vesicle, so that 

 this appears darker at these parts. One day I opened a pro- 

 tuberance gently : I waited to see the Rotifer spring out and 

 enjoy the liberty so dear to all creatures, even to infusorial 

 animals ; but no — he preferred to bury himself in his prison, 

 descending into the tubes of the plant, and to nestle himself in 

 the middle of a mass of green matter rather than swim about 

 freely in the neighbourhood of his dwelling. 



Some of these protuberances had greenish threads appended 

 to their free end, and others had none : I thought at first that 

 these threads were some mucus from within, escaped through 

 some opening which might have served the Rotifer as an en- 

 trance ; but an attentive and lengthened observation convinced 

 me that in this there was no solution of continuity, and that 

 the arrival of the Rotiferi in the Vaucherias was not at all to 

 be explained in this way. How are these parasitic animalcules 

 generated within them ? This is what further research has 

 some day to show. Meanwhile, I have thought that it should 

 be made known, that the animalcule found in the Vaucheriae 

 by Unger was the Rotifer vulgaris of zoologists. 



XLI. — On the Natural Terraces on the Eildon Hills being 

 formed by the Action of Ancient Glaciers. By J. E. Bow- 

 man, Esq., F.L.S. & F.G.S. 



Scarcely could my communication on these terraces in the 

 last Number of the Annals have been set in type, when I saw 

 the first announcement, by Prof, Agassiz, of the evidences he 

 had seen of the former existence of Glaciers in Scotland. A 

 little reflection, aided by my own recollections of the Swiss 

 glaciers, and of the general views so ably given by him at 

 the late meeting at Glasgow, soon satisfied me that his theory 

 would meet all the difficulties that had so much perplexed me, 

 and explain the actual appearances exhibited on the hills in 

 the neighbourhood of Galashiels. I regret that I was not 

 aware of his discovery when I wrote my remarks ; though it 

 must be allowed that my ignorance of it has saved me from 

 the imputation of any bias in applying it to the phaenomena 

 in question. 



As the fact of the former existence of glaciers in Scotland 

 is now exciting general attention, and will soon, I doubt not, 

 be firmly established, I might have silently left it to others to 

 consider them as the true cause of these terraces, had not a 



