266 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
the agent which brought them, a conclusion on this point may he 
arrived at. 
The thanks of the Committee are due to Mr Stevenson and Mr 
M ‘Neill for their attention to the Convener’s application to them in 
this matter. 
Linlithgowshire. 
1. Two years ago, the Convener, having been kindly invited by 
Mr James Melvin, tenant of Bonnington Barm, to examine some 
boulders near his farm, went there under his guidance. 
On Pumpherston Estate there is a bit of ground higher than 
any adjoining district, on which there is still a considerable number 
of boulders, though formerly there were more. The height of the 
spot is about 430 feet above the sea. 
The largest goes by the name of the “ Ballengeich Boulder.” It 
is in girth 10 or 12 feet. The spot on which it lies is about 3 feet 
above the adjoining ground. The boulder, though at one time an 
entire mass, now consists of eight fragments. How it has been 
broken, and when, is of course matter only of conjecture. It seems 
due to some natural cause. It may have been caused by atmospheric 
action, or by falling from a height. 
It is evidently an erratic, — being a coarse dolerite — of which 
there are no rocks known nearer than the Bathgate hills to the N.W. 
The eight fragments combined would produce a mass of from 50 
to 60 tons. 
Mr Maclagan, M.P., the proprietor of the land, having been so 
obliging as to send a labourer with a pick and spade, a pit was dug 
in two places adjoining the boulder to ascertain the nature of the 
substance on which it was lying. Boulder clay of a blueish yellow 
colour was below. The block had sunk into it about a foot. 
2. Not far from this boulder there is another, about a quarter of 
a ton in weight, of quartzite with crystals of green mica, most pro- 
bably from the Highlands. 
The other boulders were smaller in size, and of ordinary trap, — 
a rock abounding in many of the adjoining hills. 
3. On the farm of Bonnington , there is a boulder known as the 
“ Witch's Stone,” about the same size as that on Pumpherston, at 
a height of about 431 feet above the sea. 
