68 ? 
of Edinburgh , Session 1877-78. 
4. At Almoick Hill , near Liberton Church , at an elevation of about 
350 feet above the sea, extensive excavations have been made in 
the boulder clay for the new Edinburgh water-works. The boulders 
consist chiefly of fragments of rocks, which are known to be in situ 
situated in districts of the country to the west and north-west. The 
great majority of the boulders are of hard red sandstone rock, such 
as occurs at Grange and Merchiston, to the west of Edinburgh, 
though these places are at a lower level. There are boulders of 
marine limestone, similar to rocks of that description in Linlith- 
gowshire. There is an immense quantity of blue-coloured green- 
stones and dark-coloured basalts, and also buff-coloured felspathic 
rocks. There are some small boulders of pure quartz, which pro- 
bably hail from the Silurian rocks to the north-west of Callendar 
and Doune. 
Many of the boulders occupy positions, present shapes, and bear 
marks of some interest. 
The largest seen by the Convener were about 7 feet long by 4 
feet wide, and 2 ^ thick or deep. 
The boulders were all well rounded and smooth, but more par- 
ticularly so on what had been the upper and the under sides. 
Mr Black, the superintendent of the excavations, being aware of 
the interest attaching to the position of the boulders and the strice 
on them, had, with a compass, ascertained that the long-shaped 
boulders, before being moved, generally were lying in directions 
varying between W.IST.W. and 1ST.W. ; that the strise, when such 
existed, were almost always parallel with the longer axis of the 
boulder ; and that there were striae, sometimes only on the upper 
side, sometimes only on the lower side, sometimes on both sides. 
In one of the boulders, well rutted on the under side, he had re- 
marked that the ruts were deepest at the east end of the boulder, 
and that they gradually diminished in depth and numbers towards 
the west. This feature might be accounted for on the supposition 
that the boulder, whilst being pushed forward, encountered hard 
obstacles which produced deep ruts on the boulder when the first 
of Glasgow, as suggested by Mr Peach, what was the transporting agent to 
suit those localities ? A glacier moving from west to east by the action of 
gravity would be hardly conceivable. The levels preclude that agent. A sea 
current, loaded with floating ice, seems a more probable conjecture. 
