EARLY MAX IX SCOTLAND 135 



two lower sea beaches ? There is undoubted evidence that 

 lie did. 



Along, the margin of the 45-50 foot terrace in the 

 neighbourhood of Falkirk one comes upon the shell-mounds 

 and kitchen-middens of Neolithic man. All these occur on 

 or at the base of the bluffs which overlook the carse lands 

 or, in other words, upon the old sea-coast. Again, in the 

 Carse of Gowrie, a dug-out canoe was seen at the very base 

 of the deposits, and immediately above the buried forest- 

 bed of the Tay valley. The 25-30 foot beach has been 

 excavated out of the 40-50 foot terrace ; it is largely a 

 plain of erosion rather than of accumulation. It is probable, 

 therefore, that many of the relics of man and his congeners 

 which have been obtained at certain depths in the 25-30 

 foot beach may really belong to the period of the 40- 

 50 foot beach. Some of these finds will now be re- 

 ferred to. 



In 1819 the bones of a great whale, estimated at about 

 72 feet long, were exposed in the carse land adjoining the 

 gate leading into the grounds of Airthrey Castle, near 

 Bridge of Allan, about 25 feet above the level of high water 

 of spring tides. Two pieces of stag's horn, through one of 

 which a hole about an inch in diameter had been bored, 

 were found close to the skeleton. In 1824, on the estate of 

 Blair Drummond, in the district of Menteith, a whale's 

 skeleton was exposed, and along with it a fragment of a 

 stag's horn which was said to have a hole in it and to have 

 been like that found along with the Airthrey whale. Mr. 

 Home Drummond also states that a small piece of wood 

 was present in the hole, which fitted it, but on drying, 

 shrunk considerably. Unfortunately, these specimens have 

 been lost, and no drawings or more detailed descriptions 

 were ever apparently published, though in some geological 

 and archaeological works they have been stated, without any 

 authority, to have been lances or harpoons. Twenty years 

 ago the skeleton of another whale was exposed at Meikle- 

 wood, Gargunnock, a few miles to the west of Stirling, and 

 resting upon the front of its skull was a portion of the 

 beam of the antler of a red deer, fashioned into an implement 

 eleven inches long, and six and a half inches in greatest 



