PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
21 # 
exchanged for fine Clay and silty river deposits. He could not agree with the 
conclusion come to, that this was occasioned by an upheave, but considered it, on 
the other hand, as partly caused by an invasion and recess of the ocean. We 
had historical evidence of the overflow of the sea in the time of Alexander II., 
which then swept over the low coasts of Scotland, and destroyed many villages. 
To this era he was disposed to assign the formation. He had found in these 
Gravel-beds that the shells all corresponded with those still existing in the 
adjoining seas ; the minutest groovings of most of them, and the delicate operculae 
of some of them, Vv ere still entire, and he could not conceive how this should be 
the case had they for many years been washed by the sea, and tossed about on 
the beach. He (Mr. P.) considered that the whole phenomena might have been 
brought about by a very temporary immersion of, perhaps, a few days only. As 
to some of the higher beds of Gravel and Sand, with shells, which had been 
noticed, any one who had observed the agency of the wind on Sandy downs 
would easily account for them. On the Sand-hill at Whinnyhill, for example, 
large tracts were covered with matter, which caused them to seem as if covered 
with a sea beach, which were, in fact, merely the drift from the adjoining banks. 
Mr. Page here illustrated by diagrams how the various appearances might be 
accounted for. 
Mr. Buist said that there were two difficulties in Mr. Page’s doctrine he could 
not get over. First, if the beaches described were occasioned by an overflow of 
the sea rather than an uprise in the shore, whence arose the inequalities in level 
found to prevail in it ? The second was, how were the ancient water-worn cliffs 
formed found so generally to border the beach on the landward side, and which at 
Grail Links were 80 yards, and at Strathtyrum nearly a mile, from the present 
sea-shore ? Could such masses of rock as this be washed away by a temporary 
submergence ? He should also have a difficulty in reference to the mass of the 
beach itself, which in many places was upwards of five, and at Largo Bay nearly 
ten, feet in thickness. 
Some further discussion on this point ensued, in which Mr. Page very ingeni¬ 
ously defended his own views of the matter. Sir David Brewster and Mr. John 
Goodsir argued in favour of those of Mr. Buist. 
Mr. Page then proceeded to give some account of elastic mineral pitch, or 
mineral Caoutchouc, which he had discovered in mountain or Carboniferous 
Limestone at Lochhead, six miles North from Burnt island. This remarkable 
substance had heretofore been considered very rare, and was only to be found in 
some of the mines in Germany and Derbyshire. He found the pitch in great 
abundance in this locality, which had heretofore been utterly overlooked by 
geologists. The specimen presented, though found more than six months ago> 
2 f 2 
