NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 157 



Then stopiied — and that during the time that our Scotland, 

 risen from the waves, was peopled by our fathers — this period of 

 elevation, whether to continue rising, or to perform a retrograde 

 movement, who can tell. The Craig, monumental and sohtary, 

 marks some of the changes in our country's history which, if 

 we could only picture to ourselves, would give such an estimate 

 of the forces and powers at work in modifying the form of our 

 earth as would excite our wonder and awe. How different would 

 be the view presented to the spectator standing overlooking the 

 scene before these changes began. A comparatively level plain, 

 bounded on the north and east l3y hills of but small size, rising 

 ground to the west, with long surging billows breaking the 

 eternal silence; then, as he looks, the sudden subsidence of the 

 land, and the rushing in of that sea Avhicli dashed agamst the 

 Ivintyre coast. Then, for long ages, those highlands to be covered 

 with eternal ice, moving in slow, powerful force down the slopes, 

 carrying clay and rock to the sea level, their avalanches breaking 

 in upon the stillness of the scene, and possibly assisting the 

 detachment of the laudfloes and icebergs, which, floating away, 

 carry wdth them remains of the denuded land, pebbles lop-sided 

 and striated, which they drop into the depths beneath. One 

 eternal scene of sea and ice presents itself, and nothing else; but 

 these agents are doing great work, for when again the scene is 

 changed, what was before-time solid earth is now gone for ever, 

 and the only remnant of that perished land are the islands of 

 Arran, Cumbraes, and the Craig. Still the scene is icebound, and 

 continues so as successive upheavals take place, till a change again 

 comes over the landscape. Warmer seas and brighter skies 

 supervene, the glacier leaves our hills, the iceberg sails no more 

 upon our seas, the scoring and grooving ceases, and soon the 

 lowlands wave with forests, the heather covers the sides of the 

 mountains, and, bathed in the glories of a summer sun, the peaks 

 and passes of bonny Scotland appear. 



How much truth, therefore, is contained in Keat's lines ! how 

 much sound geology when he addresses Ailsa ! 



" Dread rock, thy life is two etemities- 

 The last in air, the former in the deep ; 



rirst with the whale, last with the eagle skies; 

 Drowned wast thou till an earthquake made thee sted 



Another cannot bow thy giant size." 



