^{page 746 note *} Note by Convener.—Sanday Island is 5 or 6 miles from Ronaldshay. Stromness is at the S.W. end of Pomona, and about 40 miles from Ronaldshay, with deep seas between, and several small islands. Stromness is the only locality in the Orkneys for granite and syenite. In Sanday, there is the remarkable granite boulder weighing about 9 tons, which is referred to in the Committee's Second Report, p. 168.

Note by Convener.—The stones of Steffis are referred to by the late Dr. Hibhert in his quarto volume on Shetland (published in 1822), p. 173, where also a diagram of them is given, and an intimation of his inability to say more about them than that they “were enormous detached masses, which do not seem to have undergone any very distant removal, since they repose on rocks of a similar kind.” In a paper in the Edinburgh Journal of Science for 1831 (vol. iv. p. 88), written by Dr. Hibbert (as he observes) twelve years after his first visit, he offers an opinion, which he says he is now “disposed to pronounce with some degree of confidence.” “These immense boulders (he says) are in an elevated situation upon a very narrow tongue of land, 3 or 4 miles in extent, which having jutted out into the ocean in a N.E. direction, would be opposed to the direct force of the diluvial wave. The extremity of the headland being much broken, an indication is thereby afforded of the site Whence these stones have been dislodged and by diluvial currents hurried along. The distance (he adds) to which they have been detached cannot be estimated at more than a mile or two.”

These remarks are interesting, as indicating Hibbert's opinion, after a second visit to the spot, that the “stones” had been disrupted by some tremendous agency moving in a direction from N.E. towards S.W. and carried to a distance of “a mile or two.” When Hibbert wrote in the year 1831, he not unnaturally, for boulder transport, adopted the theory proposed by Sir James Hall of Dunglass in 1812, of oceanic waves sweeping across continents. It was not till many years after, that ice was suggested as a medium of transport.

Hibbert, after referring to these stones of Steffis as “immense boulders,” “detached” and “hurried along” from the headland of Lunna, goes on(by way of confirming his opinion) to cite several other cases in the Shetlands of the transport of boulders, which are extremely interesting.

^{page 749 note *} Note by Convener.—The Island of Eday is about 13 miles to the S.S.W. of Fair Isle. In the Geological Map of the Orkneys, lately published by Messrs. Peach and Home (Quart. Jour. of Lond. Geol. Society for Nov. 1850), the rocks of “Eday” are represented as consisting of old red sandstone conglomerate. The geology of “Fair Isle” is not given by these gentlemen.

^{page 751 note *} The “Tom Riach” boulder is between 300 and 400 feet above the sea-level; and the “Cumberland stone” is 487 feet above the sea.

^{page 761 note *} In English, “The hill for sitting on,” in reference to the practice of travellers to the top of Ben Nevis resting on it.

^{page 765 note *} Mr. Livingston explains that this word means “Hill of Clerks or Clergy,” implying that it belonged to the church.

^{page 765 note †} When the people at “Blar-mach-foldach” saw the sun over this boulder, viz., at 2 P.M., they went to dinner.

^{page 766 note *} This Gaelic word means “Green spot, outlying, hospitable.”

^{page 767 note *} This word means “Stream from a marsh.”

^{page 767 note †} Note by Convener.—It is difficult to understand how the supposed glacier could wind round the shoulder of the hill here referred to. The position of the ten boulders on the surface of detrital matter, seems rather to suggest the agency of water and floating ice.

^{page 768 note *} This name means “Hill of Rowan trees;” though there are none there now.

^{page 775 note *} I found no other grey granite boulder on the S.W. of Nevis, though many on the N.E. The amianthus boulder may fairly be referred to the lime locality near Glen Nevis.

^{page 775 note †} This discovery of a rock in situ, identically the same as the rock composing boulders seen on Stob Coire a' Chearchaill, alters the opinion I had formed last year as to the direction from which these boulders had come.

^{page 776 note *} Professor Duns having read these notes, informs the Convener that boulders of the kind of rock here mentioned (Livingston rock), were observed by him on the slopes of Meall an t Suidhe, near the mouth of Glen Nevis.

^{page 777 note *} [Note by Convener.—There is the greater reason for the more thorough exploration here suggested, because Craig Dhu, has been examined by several other geologists, —Professor Nicol, Mr Jameson (Ellon), Mr Jolly (Inverness), and the Convener. The opinions formed by several of these, were that the agent which transported the boulders and glaciated the rocks on the hill came not from the eastward but from the westward. Royal Society of Edinburgh Trans., vol. xxvii. p. 640.]

^{page 783 note *} That all or most of the valleys were filled originally with detritus is evident, from the account given in Dr. Heddle's notes of a great bank of detritus found by him at a height of 2904 feet (page 35); and from the fact mentioned by Professor Duns, that one very large gneiss boulder (weighing about 100 tons) was found by him on a steep slope at a height of 1500 feet, resting mainly on three small rounded granite boulders (page 24).