259 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1863 - 64 . 
The interest of this section lies in the fact of its proving, that 
the boulder-clay in this case was deposited in water. This is ob- 
vious, not only from the sedimentary character of the underlying 
clay and sand, with which the boulder-clay is here associated, but 
also from the soft nature and exposed condition of these underly- 
ing beds which could not possibly have resisted the pressure of ice. 
The boulder-clay seems here, therefore, to have been dropped from 
under the edge of the ice-cake covering of our land just where it 
began to float at the shore line, and thus quietly to have buried the 
true marine deposits now underlying it. 
Another locality, where I recently examined the boulder-clay, is 
in the cutting of the New Wemyss Bay Kailway, where it ap- 
proaches its junction with the present G-reenock Eailway, just be- 
low Port-Glasgow. The new railway cutting here runs at a height 
of 60 feet above the sea, along the edge of the steep slope, the base 
of which is the flat known as the 40-foot sea-beach. The old rail- 
way runs here along this flat ; and it was in this neighbourhood 
that the shell-bed described by Mr Smith of Jordan hill occurs in 
a bed of sand overlying the boulder-clay. The boulder-clay is 
somewhat redder, but otherwise exactly like that in the railway 
cutting which is now' being made between Newhaven and Leith. 
It is dark, sandy, and full of striated stones. Through it there 
runs horizontally a well marked stratum of fine sand and clay 
about two inches thick, W'hich I traced for several yards, till it was 
lost in the debris of the cutting In the midst of this boulder-clay 
at a height of about 60 feet above the sea, I found several frag- 
ments of shells, one or two of wLich seemed to belong to an astarte ; 
the others were unrecognisable. Under the boulder-clay the rock 
has been laid bare, and both its seaward face and upper surface are 
well seen. It is a coarse sandstone ; its upper surface is very 
strongly striated and well rounded. 
Here then, as in the former case, we have evidence that the 
boulder-clay was deposited in the sea. It was land ice which formed 
the materials of the boulder-clay, and consolidated them by its pres- 
sure. This is now generally admitted, but the presence of the shells 
and the existence of the stratum of sand and clay indicate that these 
materials were deposited on a surface covered by the sea. But 
there are indications here of a still more interesting fact. The 
