168 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
menced at or near the edge of the precipice, viz., at their west ends, 
as they are deeper and wider at that end than at the east end. 
Between Gairloch and Loch Fionn, a distance of about 10 miles, 
all the hills have abundance of boulders on their sides up to their 
tops, and generally these are most numerous on the west sides ; hut 
at one place, 600 feet above the sea, two boulders were observed on 
a rock surface sloping towards the W.S.W., and which apparently 
had come upon the hill from that quarter. 
At first the Convener was surprised to find that the smooth rock 
surfaces, and some of the boulders in the district between Gairloch 
and Loch Fionn indicated agency not from the H.W. hut from the 
W.S.W. He ultimately saw an explanation of this deviation from 
the normal direction, by the existence of a high range of hills due 
east of Gairloch, which might have deflected a IST.W. current, and 
caused it to flow E.N.E. instead of S.E. 
It has been mentioned that most of the boulders on the hills 
near Gairloch are composed of a reddish brown sandstone rock with 
small pebbles in it, and that this rock is entirely different from the 
rocks of these hills. 
This reddish-brown sandstone rock exists largely in situ along the 
the coast to the N.W. of Gairloch. Professor Geikie, in his recent 
Geological Map of Scotland, states this to be the case. It is also 
spoken to, as existing in that quarter, by Professor Nicol and by 
Robert Chambers. There can be no doubt, therefore, that these 
Gairloch sandstone boulders, as seen by the Convener at levels ex- 
ceeding 700 feet above the sea, have come from that district — as 
indeed the boulders themselves indicate alike by their situation and 
their altitudes on the hills. 
XV. — LOCH MAREE. 
The road from Gairloch to Loch Maree passes through a valley 
running for a mile or more in a direction pretty uniformly W.N.W. 
and E.S.E. At several places on the roadside smoothed rocks 
were observed with striae running in that direction. There was 
nothing to show whether the rock had been smoothed and striated 
by a glacier or by sea ice. 
On the hills to the west of Loch Maree Hotel, reaching to a 
height of about 1 000 feet above the sea, multitudes of red sandstone 
