a Canadian Society. It had become known to Mr James Geikie, and as he found it had not been reproduced in this country, he sent it to the "Geological Magazine," on account, as he says, of its importance. In this paper Dr Landor states that annually in the St Lawrence and other Canadian rivers, even of small size, he has seen a vast number of pebbles and stones as big as a foot in diameter carried away by ground ice;" and he has no doubt that the bottoms of all the lakes of North America are strewed with gravel, and even small boulders, which have been brought into them in this way by rivers; and that the seeds of plants, and the ova of fish and insects, are by the same means transported and distributed over wide areas of the earth's surface.

The other paper is by Professor Milne, "On Ice and Ice Work in Newfoundland;" and its object is to describe the immense amount of work done, not only in transporting boulders, but in striating rocks, by flóe ice, on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. In particular he specifies the Island of St John, the rocks on which, consisting of limestone, have, owing to this cause, been "planed perfectly flat; and then across the surface so planed, a series of parallel lines several yards in length, from 3 to 6 inches apart, and from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch deep, had been evenly ruled. Sometimes (he adds) instead of lines crossing an even plane, similarly marked, smooth, troughlike hollows have been formed" (page 405). Professor Milne mentions that "where the pack-ice can float up and down along the foot of a cliff, or in deep water near rocks, the consequences are the formation of horizontal grooves aud scratches; and these are in some cases carried to such an extent, that the cliff may be undercut" (p. 406).

Professor Milne adds, that "looking at the Northern Hemisphere alone, and comparing the deeply indented coast lines, say of North America and Greenland, every yard of which is more or less subject to the action of coast-ice, with the portions which throw off glaciers to form bergs, the coast ice must in quantity be infinitely greater than the glaciers. The northern field ice, when it arrives in the latitudes of Newfoundland, is often seen to be covered with boulders, gravel, kelp, and other materials, showing it to have been at some time or other in contact with the coast. In Newfoundland, which appears to be a rising area, there is every reason to suspect that many of the markings seen round the coast, which have hitherto been attributed either to glaciers or to icebergs, have been impressed by coast ice (pp. 408, 9).

Reports such as those by eye witnesses, of the agency of floating ice, not only in transporting boulders but in striating rocks, seem to me exceedingly valuable, and throw a large amount of new light on the subject.

7. Before concluding these somewhat desultory notes, I may mention the recent discovery of two small boulders in the west of Scotland, which appears to me extremely interesting.

(1) Near Kilwinning, in Ayrshire, a coal pit has recently been sunk. The Pleistocene beds above the rocks are about 42 feet thick. One of these is a bed of muddy sand 18 feet thick, containing Arctic shells, and in this bed a small boulder of flint was found.

Mr Robertson of Glasgow, who pays great attention to these Pleistocene deposits, has been so obliging as to send to me a small chip of this boulder, and I now produce it for your inspection.

Mr Robertson in his letter states that he has in his possession a portion of another flint boulder found on an Island in Loch Lomond in a clay bed containing Arctic shells.

The question arises, where did these flint boulders come from? I see from Professor Geikie's map, that the only part of Scotland where chalk exists is in the Island of Mull, distant about 30 miles to the north-west.

These flint boulders found in the west of Scotland remind me of the flints which were produced at a meeting of our own Society last winter, accompanied by a most interesting paper, in which Mr Smyth described the locality where they had been found,— viz., in a great sand pit between Arthur Seat and Leith. By the kindness of Mr Smyth, I now exhibit some of the specimens of these flint boulders.

(2) The other boulder to which I referred was one of galena, or sulphuret of lead, found in Glasgow when an excavation was being made for the foundation of a large new building. The deposits here (beginning at the surface) consisted of-1st, a bed of yellow clay 2 feet thick; next, a bed of sand, which in its lower part passed into coarse gravel. In this coarse gravel, at a depth from the surface of 10 feet, the boulder was found. It weighed about 1 cwt., and was of an irregular oval shape, rounded at the corners.

Mr Young, curator of the Glasgow University Museum, who has had the kindness to send to me a bit of this boulder for exhibition here to-night, has been trying to discover districts in Scotland from whence this boulder came. There are three districts where lead veins abound-viz., at Tyndrum, at Inverteill in Argyllshire, and at Leadhills in Dumfriesshire.

The subject is obtaining full consideration at the hands of Mr Young, and the result of his inquiries will be stated at an early meeting of the Glasgow Geological Society.

Perhaps, whilst referring to the subject of boulders, I may be permitted to refer to the existence of a committee appointed some years ago, by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to collect information regarding Scotch boulders. That committee has

published three reports; and being convener of the committee I am now collecting materials for a fourth report. There are, in the Transactions of our Society, notices of a number of boulders, which I propose to refer to in our next report; and I should be glad to receive from members of this Society notes of any boulders of an interesting character with which they are acquainted, so that these also may be included in our next report.

Gentlemen, in concluding my address, I have to express a hope, that during the present session we may have an abundance of interesting papers. We are fortunate in having a Secretary, who, being energetic and popular, and also a good geologist, will no doubt know where he can seek for interesting materials to lay before us. But I trust that members will not require to be canvassed, and that they will volunteer papers on any subjects which they think are calculated to create interest and induce discussion.

On the motion of Mr HENRY CADELL of Grange, formerly Vice-President of the Society, seconded by Mr BINNING HOME of Argaty, the thanks of the Society were awarded to Mr MILNE HOME.

The Society then elected the following office-bearers for Session 1876-77:

18th January 1877.

JAMES BRYCE, Esq., LL.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communication was read:

Notice of Glaciated Rock Surfaces (displaying Corals) near Bathgate, recently quarried away. By RALPH RICHARDSON, F.R.S.E., Honorary Secretary.

Mr James Linn kindly showed me, on 28th June last, an interesting glaciated rock about a mile distant from Bathgate. It was the surface of a bed of Carboniferous limestone (marine) in Petershill quarry, dipping, from E.S.E. to W.N.W. (true), at an angle of 30°. This glaciated surface was laid bare about a year before we saw it, and has been recently quarried away; so that a notice is desirable, if only to record the fact of its having once existed.

The rock in question was about 15 yards long by 3 wide, and a great portion had been already removed by the quarrying operations. At the north end of the rock, in particular, the original glaciated surface was well preserved, and a beautiful specimen of Lonsdaleia floriformis coral was displayed. It had been polished quite smooth by the glaciating agent. In the case of another specimen of the same coral, which was also visible, the polishing had been obliterated by weathering. Various corals of the same species, also Spirifers and Encrinites, and a specimen of Cauda galli (supposed by Professor Ramsay to be a seaweed*) were also displayed-in every case polished. The polishing was much more perfect where the corals appeared in the surface of the limestone, their structure being harder than the limestone. Indeed, this hardness of the fossils produced protuberances in the surface of the rock in which they appeared, the glaciating agent having eroded the rock-surface around the corals. The erosive power and action of the agent (ice) is shown by its having removed the softer limestone surrounding the corals, which consequently protruded from it slightly.

The rock under notice was situated about 700 feet above the sea-level. Striæ crossed its surface at various places, running E.S.E. and W.N.W. (true), the line of the dip. No cross striæ were observed; consequently the rock seems to have been planed, polished, and striated by some agent moving persistently in one direction, such as a glacier-not an iceberg. Above the rock occurred a bed of boulder-clay about 13 feet deep, proving that * Mr Salter's Appendix to Geol. Survey's Memoir 32, p. 150.

previous to the deposition of the boulder-clay, the subjacent rock under notice had been completely polished and striated by the passage over it of some heavy, closely-enveloping agent, presumably ice. In the middle of the boulder clay a somewhat singular regular line of boulders occurred, some of greenstone, some of sandstone full of vegetable remains, and some of coarse limestone. About 4 feet of tirring topped the bed of boulder clay.

Another, but much smaller, glaciated rock surface occurred in a bed of limestone about a quarter of a mile to the north of that just noticed. Its surface was polished like the other, and the dip of this bed and the striæ upon its surface corresponded with those of the bed first mentioned. I am glad to say that Mr Linn arranged with the quarrymen to preserve for him the beautiful glaciated specimen of Lonsdaleia floriformis above noted. He informs me that, on visiting Petershill in company with our last elected Foreign Corresponding Fellow, Major Brooks of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, U.S., on 6th July last (our visit had taken place only a week before), he found that the ice markings on the bed first described in this paper had all been quarried away. He secured two fragments, however, from the quarrymen. The rapidity with which interesting geological phenomena often disappear, by human as well as by elemental agencies, proves the desirability of their being observed and recorded without any delay; and this, I think, should be regarded as one of the prime uses and duties of a Society such as ours.

2d February 1877.

D. MILNE HOME, Esq., LL.D., President, in the Chair.

The following Communication was read:

Note on a Striated Erratic recently exposed at Granton; with Observations on the Requisites for Determining the Parent Rocks of Erratics. By RALPH RICHARDSON, F.R.S.E., Honorary Secretary.

The portion of an erratic exposed at Granton Harbour by the recent storm is certainly one of the most perfectly striated rocks I ever saw. As an instance of striation it well deserves a visit, and as the tide will probably soon obliterate the striæ upon it, the rock itself should be briefly noticed in this Society. It