778 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Remarks by Mr. Milne Home , on presenting Report , 
5th June 1882. 
As Convener of the Boulder Committee I now present the 
Eighth Annual Report. 
I presume it is not expected that I am to read the Report, and 
that it will be sufficient if I describe verbally what appear to me 
the most interesting parts. 
But before doing so, I beg to offer a few remarks of a general 
nature, explaining the objects for which the Committee was 
appointed, and the lines of inquiry pursued, as members will in this 
way be better able to see the bearings of the information contained 
in the Report. 
These blocks of stone called boulders, so called probably from 
their generally rounded form, were first subjected to scientific 
observation and discussion, about seventy years ago, by a dis- 
tinguished Fellow of this Society, whose portrait, as President, 
hangs on these walls — Sir James Hall of Dunglass. His Memoir 
on the subject was published iii our Transactions , I think, about the 
year 1812. He was the first who realised the fact that most of 
these boulders, before reaching the sites now occupied by them, had 
travelled great distances ; and having convinced himself, by a close 
study of the position of the boulders, that they had come from the 
westward, he suggested that there had been great inundations of the 
sea, whose waters swept fragments of rock across the country, 
subjecting them to enormous friction, and thus giving to them their 
rounded forms. 
That theory was accepted for many years, until it was pointed 
out that boulders, similar in appearance to those in Scotland, and 
not less in magnitude, were to be seen travelling on the surface of 
glaciers, and, on reaching the lower extremities of these glaciers, 
were thrown down on localities remote from the rocks of which 
they were fragments. This view obtained great favour about 
the year 1840, having been advocated by the distinguished 
Swiss naturalist Agassiz, who, in company with the late Professor 
Buckland, visited the Highlands of Scotland, and declared that the 
transport of our Scotch boulders might be accounted for in that way. 
