of the Recent Flora of Britain. 181 
though the plants of the only one I have been able to examine 
were nearly all too much decayed for determination. 
Kilmaurs, in Ayrshire, is probably the most celebrated of 
these interglacial deposits 1 . Here, beneath a thick bed of 
till, and associated with a tusk of mammoth, a number of 
seeds were found. Mr. John Young, of the Hunterian 
Museum, has given me the opportunity of examining the 
original specimens, and I have also received some others from 
Mr. Bennie. The number of species, however, only amounts 
to six, all plants of wide range. 
The most interesting, botanically, of all the Scotch inter- 
glacial deposits are found at Redhall and Hailes quarries, 
about three miles from Edinburgh. 
The peaty mud at the first of these localities occurs beneath 
a mass of boulder clay, the position of which both Dr. Arch. 
Geikie and Mr. Howell assure me cannot be accounted for by 
any landslip or similar cause. This question it was very 
important to settle, for a large number of species occur in the 
interglacial peat at Redhall, that are elsewhere unrecorded in 
a fossil state from beds of any age. Two of these species till 
now have been considered recent introductions into Britain. 
Through the industry of Mr. Bennie, we can now form a 
very good idea of the flora of this period, for he has sent me 
the fruits and seeds of no less than forty-six species of flower- 
ing plants from Redhall, besides ten or fifteen not yet deter- 
mined. They occur, associated with elytra of beetles and 
caddis-cases, felted together with Mosses. There are no 
mollusca or mammals, but probably the peaty water has dis- 
solved all calcareous organisms. It is to be hoped that before 
long Mr. Bennie may be able to publish a full account of his 
interesting discoveries in these interglacial deposits. 
The whole of the plants from Redhall are still native of the 
Scotch lowlands, with the exception of Galeopsis Tetrahit and 
Carum Carui. However, the recent distribution of these two 
species makes it surprising, not that they are found fossil in 
an interglacial deposit in Britain, but rather that they are not 
1 See R. Craig and John Young, in Trans. Geol. Soc., Glasgow, vol. iii. p. 310. 
