38 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



From the Society. 2. (1.) Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society of Manchester, Third Series, Vol. I., 1862 ; (2.) Proceedings of 

 the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, Vol. IT., 1860-61 

 and 1861-62 ; (3.) Rules of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 Manchester. 1861. — From the Society. 3. Proceedings of the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society of Liverpool during the Fifty-first Session, 

 1861-62. No. 16, 1862. — From the Society. 



The Communications read were as follow : — 



I. On the Fossils of the Boulder- clay of Caithness, N.B. 

 By C. W. Peach, Esq., Wick. 



Notwithstanding all that has been written on the boulder- 

 clay, little is known about the fossils belonging to that 

 formation in Caithness. I therefore venture to lay before 

 you a paper on the subject. 



This clay may be traced all over Caithness ; in some places 

 it is very deep, especially in estuaries, and on the sides of 

 our rivers and burns. Some sections show a depth of 60 or 

 80 feet. In some places it is from low water mark to 200 

 feet and upwards above the level of the sea. It differs 

 greatly even in the same locality, for in spots shells are 

 abundant with very few stones, and the clay not very hard. 

 At a short distance from this, stones are abundant, shells rare, 

 and the clay so compact, that it cannot be blasted by gun- 

 powder, nor will it yield to the pickaxe beyond the small 

 piece into which it is driven. Occasionally it contains very 

 large blocks of stones, mingled with smaller ones, not in 

 regular layers. The stones are of all kinds, granite, porphyry, 

 gneiss, quartz, &c, Silurian, Old Eed Sandstone, chalk-flints, 

 oolite, lias, limestone, &c. &c. I found at Wick one piece 

 from the Crag, known to be so by a characteristic shell em- 

 bedded in it. Many of these derived rocks contain fossils, 

 whilst ammonites, belemnites, fossil wood, &c. &c, are also 

 loose in the clay. Almost all the stones, and even the 

 fossils, are more or less worn, polished, and striated. 



The rocks on which the clay rests are also polished and 

 grooved, many of these grooves are very deep and coarse, 

 others very fine, occasionally the surface is very smooth, 

 when on quartz rock, often brightly polished. All the 

 grooves that I have met with on rocks below the clay in 



