OF SCOTLAND. 
63 
situation of the ground where the tusk was found ; but it 
could not, in my opinion, have been covered with earth from 
a high bank, as it was at the top of the river-bank where 
the table-land commences. 
This specimen being an anomaly in the general observa- 
tions I have made as to organic remains, I can offer no 
hypothesis on the subject, nor form any idea as to the 
period when this tusk had been deposited. We know such 
specimens are found in a bed of clay in the vicinity of 
London, but the clay is altogether different from that at 
Cliftonhall. All these specimens refer to a period very re- 
mote, as to which many ingenious theories have been 
brought forward, without, however, producing any satis- 
factory conclusion. 
As to this old alluvial cover, I am led to think, from 
many observations, that it has been gathered together by a 
violent and sudden convulsion ; and my chief reason for 
concluding so is, from the intimate, yet heterogenous mix- 
ture of clay, sand, and boulder-stones, while the sharp an- 
gular fragments of the soft strata adjoining, such as sand- 
stone, shistus, and coal, shew, that there had been a tear- 
ing up of the strata ; but the deposit made so instantly 
that there was not time for the attrition of these soft frag- 
ments. Besides, had it gradually subsided, there would 
have been traces of beds or divisions in it, and the stones 
would have been all towards the bottom of it, upon or near 
the rock head : but this is not the case ; large and small 
boulder-stones are found mixed alike through every part 
of it. Horizontal beds of sand seldom occur. 
The only other instance I know, of elephants' tusks being 
found in the alluvial cover in Scotland, was in the parish of 
Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, near the Water of Carmel, in a pro- 
perty belonging to Lord Egltkton. They were dis- 
