GEOLOGY. 



ON THE VALUE OF THE NAMES OF PLAGES IN IN- 

 DICATING THE ANCIENT SURFACE - FEATURES OF 

 THE COUNTRY. 



Bv THE Rev. ADAM MILROY, D.D. 

 {Continued from p. 284.) 



IT frequently happens that we lind the word Inch appHed to a 

 long flat meadow along a river. This use of the word is 

 common in Ireland, and we find it in the Inches of Perth. Here, 

 too, the word means an island,- — only let us bear in mind that the 

 term describes the condition of the river holm at the time when 

 it was so designated, and may not be descriptive of the condition 

 in which it is at present. For here, as in other cases, the name 

 is retained, though the conditions have altered. A river branches 

 at a certain point, the branches unite further down, and the land 

 enclosed by the two branches forms, and is called, an island. In 

 process of time the course of the current is changed, one branch 

 ceases to run in its former channel, and thus what was once an 

 island in the midst of the stream becomes a river holm, joined 

 to the mainland. But the name Inch remains as a witness to 

 the condition which previously existed. Thus it has fared with 

 the Inches of Perth. Unfortunately, some people thought that 

 the name was descriptive, not of what they had been, but of 

 what they still are, — that if they are called inches or islands, 

 therefore they must at the present moment be islands. Casting 

 about in their minds to make the North Inch an island, they 

 found the Tay on the one side. Then they found a small mill- 

 stream flowing from the lade, which conducts water from the 

 Almond to drive the grain-mills of Perth. This small mill- 

 stream, after turning the mill-wheel at Balhousie, skirts a part 

 of the North Inch and falls into the Tay. There, it is said, is the 

 origin of the word Inch, as applied to the North Inch of Perth. 



