Notes on the Glacial Phenomena of the Hebrides

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As I shall be unable to be present at the reading of Mr. Geikie's paper on the Glaciation of the Outer Hebrides, I beg to submit to the Geological Society some extracts from my journals containing observations on the glacial phenomena presented by the western islands. Tiree , Sept. 1871.—The island is flat; and the low grounds appear to have been under water. The highest hill is Heynish, at the south-west end, and 500 feet high. On the top of the hill are a great many large perched blocks; some. are 14 or 15 feet long. So far as I could make out, they came from the north-west; they are chiefly gneiss, like rocks in the outer islands. The rocks are glaciated and weathered. Harris , Sept. 17.—The hills are made of contorted Laurentian gneiss, and much glaciated, but weathered. So far as I could make out, the ice came from N.N.W. throngh a gorge at Tarbet. Bernevay to Barra .—Bernevay is the last of the Hebrides; the whole chain looks like the hill-tops of a drowned continent. The separate islands are rocky and grassy, and are about 1000 feet high or less. On the east side these hills slope down to the Minch. On the west the Atlantic has battered the hills, and broken them, so that great cliffs now plunge sheer down, or overhang the sea. Where the rock is soft, the Atlantic waves dig into it, and make sea-caves, and there work mischief till the roof comes down. Then a

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