266 Proceedings of the Eoyal Society 
have been carried from about Locb Vennacher or Loch Erne (which 
is the nearest place for mica slate rocks), distant about 50 miles ; 
and to reach the Pentlands, must have been carried in a S.E. direc- 
tion across the Ochil range and the valley of the Forth.* A few 
days ago I was so fortunate as to fall in with a small boulder of red 
granite, on the farm of Kingston, 2 miles south of North Berwick. 
This East Lothian granite boulder most probably came also from the 
Grampians, and travelled 20 miles farther than the Pentland boulders. 
There is a large boulder of Carboniferous Sandstone on the 
Lammermuir Hills, at a height of 1500 feet above the sea, first 
taken notice of by Professor Geikie in his “ Memoir on the Geology 
of East Lothian,” which must in like manner have come from the 
N.W., where rocks of that description are situated. This boulder 
led the Professor to say, that it “ seemed to indicate a submersion 
[of the land] to the extent of 1500 feet.” 
On the farm of Drylaw, near Linton, there is a boulder, with 
striae on it, to which my attention was some years ago called by 
Sir Thomas Hepburn of Smeaton. It was met with on the occasion 
of a deep drain being made through boulder-clay. The boulder is 
of basalt, very similar in composition to a rock near the Gullane 
Hills, situated to the west. The length of the boulder is 6 feet, 
its width about 3J feet, and ■ its depth about 3J feet. 
It was narrower at one end than at the other, and that end 
pointed N.W. 
The cutting of the drain having shown striae on the north side of 
the boulder near its west end, Sir Thomas Hepburn, on whose land 
* With reference to this boulder, Mr Maclaren says : — “To reach the spot 
where it lies, it must have passed over extensive tracts of country from 500 to 
600 feet lower than this spot. Even were all Scotland converted into a ?ner de 
glace, like Greenland, no moving mass in the shape of a glacier could carry this 
boulder (and there are many such) from its native seat in Perthshire or Argyle- 
shire to Habbie’s Howe. An iceberg from the West or North Highlands, and 
floating in a sea 1500 or 2000 feet above the present level of the Atlantic, is an 
agent capable of effecting the transportation of the stone, and offers, I think, 
the only conceivable solution of the difficulty ’ ’ (. Edinburgh New Philosophical 
Journal for 1846, vol. xl. p. 138). Referring to this boulder, and to another 
of mica slate on the Pentlands, weighing about f of a ton, the late Professor 
Nicol says : — “ When it is considered that these masses must have been 
carried upwards of 40 miles in a direct line, floating ice seems the only agent 
to which their transportation can be ascribed” ( London Geological Society 
Journal , vol. v. p. 23). 
