148 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
than 90 feet or so above the sea. The deposits extend for some- 
what less than a mile along the east coast, but on the west side of 
the island one can trace them for a distance of three miles.” 
In connection with this northern part of the island, it is proper to 
notice several remarkable lines of kaims or gravel ridges and knolls. 
The Convener’s attention was first called to these by Mr Mackay 
(Sir James Matheson’s commissioner), who pointed them out from 
the high road between Stornoway and Barvas, as a feature of the 
district he had seen nowhere else. The Convener observed these 
ridges on both sides of the road, and a few days afterwards he had 
an opportunity of walking along one of them to the north of the 
Barvas hills. The ridges consist of gravel and sand, and reach a 
height of 30 to 50 feet above the adjoining level ground, from 
which they are the more easily distinguished by the uniformly green 
colour of the herbage on them, whereas the flat district they traverse 
is covered with brown peat and moss. Each of these gravelly 
ridges is continuous for more than half a mile, and they deviate 
very little from one direction, which is about W.N.W. (magn.) 
When on the top of the Barvas hills, the Convener was able to trace 
the line of one of these kaims, for at least two miles, running in a 
direction N.W. and S.E. It passes Loch Scarabhat at its south end. 
In several parts of their course, boulders occur on the ridges and 
sides of these kaims. At one place, two or three miles north of the 
Barvas hills, to which the Convener was conducted by Mr M‘Iver, 
an intelligent gamekeeper, well acquainted with the district, he 
found the kaim expanded into a number of grassy knolls, much 
resorted to in summer for the good pasturage they afford to cows. 
These knolls were, in some spots, well covered with boulders : the 
highest knolls being those where the boulders are most numerous. 
The boulders were sometimes on the east sides of the knolls, but 
more frequently on the west sides. At two places, the boulders 
were heaped and piled on one another. The Convener attempted 
to elicit from their relative positions, the quarter from which they 
had come. Most of the boulders showed unmistakably that they 
had come from the N.W., but some also from W.S.W. One 
boulder indicated transport from N.N.E. 
An old man who was looking after the cows at this shieling 
noticing the attention paid by us to the boulders, volunteered to 
