487 
of Edinburgh, Session 1870-71. 
Moreover, accumulations of gravel, sand, or clay in any district, 
in so far as they seem to have been produced by agents now no 
longer operating in the district, should be notified. 
In order to carry out these suggestions, I would venture very 
respectfully to ask that the Council of this Society should pass a 
Special Minute expressing approval of the subject explained in 
this paper, and appointing a Committee of the Fellows of this 
Society to carry out farther proceedings. The circumstance that 
this Society had expressed its approval, and taken steps to aid the 
investigation, would alone ensure for it a favourable consideration. 
The Committee would, of course, communicate with the various 
provincial societies throughout Scotland, by enclosing a copy of 
this paper or an abstract of it, and intimating readiness to send the 
necessary Schedules and Directions, should a willingness be ex- 
pressed to enter on the investigation proposed. 
I have in these remarks alluded only to the steps necessary for 
discovering the existence of remarkable boulders, indicating their 
position on a map, and obtaining a correct description of them. 
But the other object, which also engages attention so much in 
Switzerland and France, should not be lost sight of here. I allude 
to the conservation of boulders. The disappearance of numerous 
camps, buildings, standing stones, and other objects of archaeolo- 
gical interest in all our counties, which every one now regrets, has 
been owing in a great measure to ignorance on the part of the pro- 
prietors and tenants on whose lands they were situated, of the 
value and even nature of these objects. But this work of destruction 
has been happily now stopped, and chiefly by the interference and 
influence of our Society of Antiquaries. In like manner, the demo- 
lition of Boulders which has been going on rapidly in Scotland, 
will, I hope, be arrested, when the proprietors and tenants on whose 
lands they stand, are made aware of the interest they excite, and 
of what is being done to preserve them in other countries. Of 
course, it would only be certain boulders which it would be desira- 
ble to preserve, boulders remarkable for size, or shape, or position, 
or for markings upon them; and when a report was made to 
the Committee of any boulder of this description, the Committee 
would judge whether an application should be made to the pro- 
prietor on whose lands it was situated, to spare the stone, so that it 
