Notes from a diary in 1862 of some geological observations made (1) at points along the line of Caledonian Railway from Carstairs southwards, (2) at Moffat and (3) at Loch Skene

Abstract

(1.) Caledonian Railway. 1. In the Carstairs, district enormous accumulations of sand occur, forming beds stratified in layers nearly horizontal. Some of the sections exposed are from 60 to 70 feet deep. In several of these, many pebbles, including lumps of coal, the largest about the size of a man’s head. These so rounded as to indicate that they have undergone much friction in transitu. These sand deposits seem to rest on boulder-clay, a small patch of which is seen in a stream at one place adjoining. The district, covered by these deposits, comprises several square miles, and is on a pretty uniform level of about 700 feet above the sea. They occasionally form mounds and elongated ridges, which may be due either to original formation or to subsequent denudation. If originally deposited in the sea the sediment composing them would be laid down as submarine banks; or by the action of currents, they may have acquired the forms they now exhibit. To the north of Carstairs village there are some long ridges of gravel, tolerably free from sand, and consisting of well-rounded pebbles and occasional boulders. The pebbles do not form regularly stratified beds. Though most of those gravelly deposits run in a direction east and west, some follow a sinuous line and even unite with others, so as to contain small lakes or pools of water. The ridge enclosing one of these lakelets had been cut through to drain it, and thus a good opportunity was afforded of