of Edinhurgli, Session 1883-84. 
495 
may carry these matters even to the summit of the mountain, we 
may add that Mr Oniond has sent to us fragments of crystalline 
rocks, some having a diameter of two centimetres, which, he states, 
were collected on the surface of the snow at the summit after 
the storm of 26th January 1884. 
Arrangements are being made to collect the dust at the top of 
Ben l!4evis during calms with great care. 
3. On the Nomenclature, Origin, and Distribution of Deep- 
Sea Deposits. By John Murray and A, Eenard, Com- 
municated by John Murray. 
Introduction . — The sea is unquestionably the most powerful 
dynamic agent on the surface of the globe, and its effects are 
deeply imprinted on the external crust of our planet ; but among the 
sedimentary deposits which are attributed to its action, and among 
the effects which it has wrought on the surface features of the 
earth, the attention of geologists has, till wuthin quite recent times, 
been principally directed to the phenomena which take place in the 
immediate vicinity of the land. It is incontestable that the action 
of the sea along coasts and in shallow water has played the largest 
part in the formation and accumulation of those marine sediments 
which, so far as we can observe, form the principal strata of the 
solid crust of the globe ; and it has been from an attentive study 
of the phenomena which take place along the shores of modern 
seas that we have been able to reconstruct in some degree the 
conditions under which the marine deposits of ancient times were 
laid down. 
Attention has been paid only in a very limited degree to deposits 
of the same order and, for the greater part, of the same origin, 
which differ from the sands and gravels of the shores and shallow 
waters only by a lesser size of the grains, and by the fact that 
they are laid down at a greater distance from the land and in 
deeper water. And still less attention has been paid to those 
true deep-sea deposits which are only known through systematic 
submarine investigations. One might well ask what deposits 
are now taking place, or have in past ages taken place, at the 
