The ScoitisJi Naturalist. 281 



where now all is dry and fertile soil ; in the " Inches," which now 

 are only slight eminences rising from the flat champaign, — we have 

 evidences of a state of things which once existed, but now ex- 

 ist no longer. Cautiously employed, the old names often give 

 strong and unexpected corroboration to conclusions based on 

 grounds entirely different. 



For illustration of these remarks we shall take first the dis- 

 trict below Perth bordering on the Tay. We find there, on the 

 one side, the Carse of Gowrie. The fact that the district is not 

 called Gowrie, but the Carse of Gowrie, shows that we are 

 to seek for Gowrie in some particular locality. We find it at 

 Invergo\\Tie, the mouth of a small stream of that name. But 

 the name has not first of all been given to the stream; it has, like 

 many river-names, belonged first to the land through which the 

 stream flowed. Dr Joyce, whose published researches in Celtic 

 nomenclature are of the highest character, shows, in his Irish 

 names of places, that the word is originally Gabhran, pronounced 

 Gowran, meaning goat-land, the place where the goats fed. We 

 find Invergowrie written Gabriat in the legend about St Boniface 

 and Nectan, King of the Picts. We find the same name applied 

 to several places in Ireland — Gorey in Wexford, Gouree in 

 Cork. Our Gowrie leads us up towards the Carse braes, and 

 designates the place where the goats of the ancient Celtic in- 

 habitants browsed. From this spot the name has been extended 

 to the whole Carse, has given a title to earls, and appears as the 

 designation of farms and localities, marking them as having been 

 originally places for goats. In the Carse, and on the opposite 

 side of the Tay, we find distinct evidence of the land having 

 been at one time at a much lower level than the present. We 

 find a sea-beach mark 45 feet, and another 30 feet, above the 

 present sea-level. At that time much of the present land must 

 have been an estuary of the sea. The upheaval of the land and 

 the retreating of the sea must have been slow and gradual. ' In 

 this process the estuary would gradually become less in extent 

 and shallower in depth. The more that the sea retreated, 

 the longer would be the course which the streams coming down 

 from the hills would have to traverse before they reached the sea. 

 Now we have evidence to show that the final retreating of the 

 waters from the low lands in the Carse and on the opposite side 

 of the Tay was witnessed by the early Celtic inhabitants. First, 

 the old mouths of the stream are now at a considerable distance 

 from the present mouths, and at a slightly higher level. The 



