Diagram and notice of a greenstone boulder excavated in North Palmerston Place, Edinburgh

Abstract

Having observed in the Scotsman newspaper of 19th February last, a letter calling the attention of geologists to some large boulders then being excavated in Palmerston Place, Edinburgh, I went to look at them, and was pleased to find one hard and compact greenstone of considerable size, which evidently had not been moved from its natural position. It was lying partly embedded in a mass of dark-coloured stiff clay, containing numerous smaller blocks and pebbles. I found the extreme length of the boulder to be 9 feet, its height 4 feet, and its width at the base 5 feet. Its smallest end was its west end. The longer axis was by compass, west-north-west and east-south-east. The upper surface and the west end, were remarkably smooth, and the smoothness extended a little way down each side. Near the south-west corner of the boulder there was a hollow or cavity (marked a in the diagram) 2 or 3 inches deep, and 4 or 5 inches across at the top, the interior of which was also smoothed. There were no striæ in the cavity; but one of the long striæ on the surface of the boulder at its west end was on the east lip or side of the cavity, as if the incising pebble (assuming such to have been the striating tool) had first struck the boulder at that point. The deepest striæ were about a quarter of an inch in width. A few yards from the above-mentioned boulder, there was a