20 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
11 Many of the boulders in these districts are entered in the list 
of the Committee’s Preliminary Eeport ; but Mr Milne Home also 
fell in with many others which will be detailed in the next Report. 
The present sketch will be mainly confined to some points bearing 
on the probable mode of transport of the boulders. 
“ 1. The first inquiry was the quarter whence the boulder had 
come, when the rock composing it was different from the rocks of 
the adjoining district. In all the districts visited the parent 
rock seemed situated in a direction between north and west from 
the boulder. This fact did not surprise me in regard to those in 
the counties of Stirling, Perth, Forfar, and Kincardine ; — situated 
as they were principally in the low grounds south and east of the 
Grampians, which undoubtedly produced them. These boulders 
had probably come down the valleys. Put boulders were also 
found in the counties of Moray and Nairn, which apparently had 
come from the same direction, viz., from points between north 
and west. Here the same explanation was impossible ; for they 
must have travelled across a considerable extent of sea. In these 
two counties, there are boulders of granite, gneiss, and a very 
compact conglomerate, which came most probably from Caithness, 
Ross, and Cromarty ; and besides these rocks, of which great 
mountains exist in the north-west, there are to be seen smaller 
boulders of oolite, — a rock forming a narrow fringe along the eastern 
shore of Ross and Caithness. 
“ This point being of some importance with reference to the 
mode of transport, one or two other facts may be mentioned which 
seem to confirm the conclusion that the boulders of Moray and 
Nairn had come from the north-west. 1. The rocks of the hills 
on or near which they lie, had manifestly been shaven, ground 
down, polished, and scored by some powerful and wide-spread 
agent passing over them from the same direction. 2. In most 
cases the boulders lie on hill-slopes facing the north-west, as if 
arrested in their farther course by the high ground. I could 
not help concurring in the remark of a farmer, who was point- 
ing out to me four or five huge boulders on the same hill- 
slope, that 1 in takkin’ the hill, they had stuck on it.” 3. In most 
cases the boulders, when long-shaped, lie with their longer axis 
in a north-west direction, and also with their sharper end towards 
