330 Geological Society, 



Glen Turret, on the shoulder of the mountain immediately above the 

 south-west extremity of Loch Turret, a very deep ravine intersects 

 a vast lateral moraine, which Dr. Buckland shows must have been 

 lodged there whilst the Loch was a mass of ice, and the valley above 

 it filled with a glacier more than five hundred feet above the present 

 level of the lake. At the falls of the Turret, at the lower extremity 

 of the gorge, is an extensive lodgement of moraines ; and at the 

 upper end, on the left bank of the Turret, near a gate which crosses 

 the road, the slate-rocks are polished and furrowed ; and at both 

 these localities Dr. Buckland had anticipated that glacial action 

 ought to be found. 



Evidence of Glaciers near Loch Earn. — On the north bank of the 

 Loch rounded and furrowed surfaces and portions of lateral mo- 

 raines are exposed by the roadside ; and at Loch Earn Head is a 

 group of conical moraines at the junction of Glen Ogle with Loch 

 Earn, and at the very point where, had they been brought by a rapid 

 current, they would have been propelled into the Loch. It is never- 

 theless the exact position where the terminal moraine of a glacier 

 would be deposited. 



Moraines near Ca//ewc?er.— Moraines are stated to cover more or 

 less the valley of the Teith from Loch Katherine to Callender, and 

 the lofty terraces flanking the valley from Callender to Doune are 

 considered to be the detritus of moraines, modified by the great 

 floods which accompanied the melting of the ice. One of them, near 

 Callender, has been mapped as the vallum of a Roman camp. The 

 little lakes on the right bank of the I'eith, four miles east of Cal- 

 lender, Dr. Buckland considers due to moraines obstructing the 

 drainage of the country ; and the greater part of the first table-land 

 on the right bank of the Teith, between Callender and Doune, in- 

 cluding the portion on which stands Mr. Smith's farm, to be com- 

 posed of re- arranged glacial detritus. 



Proofs of Glacial Action at Stirling and Edinburgh. — Having thus 

 shown that glaciers once existed in the glens and mountainous dis- 

 tricts of Scotland, Dr. Buckland proceeds to point out the evidence 

 of glacial action at points but little raised above the level of the sea, 

 and distant from any lofty group of mountains. In 1824 he had 

 noticed that the trap-rock then recently exposed on the summit of 

 the hill, between the castle and the church, was polished and striated, 

 but at his last visit in 1840 these evidences had become obliterated 

 by weathering. The grooves and scratches described by Sir James 

 Hall on the Costorphine hills near Edinburgh, and on the surface 

 of Calton Hill, Prof. Agassiz is of opinion cannot be explained by 

 the action of water ; but they resemble, he says, the effects produced 

 by the under-surface of modern glaciers. In his recent examination, 

 in company with Mr. McLaren, of the Castle Rock at Edinburgh, 

 Dr. Buckland found further proofs of the correctness of the glacial 

 theory, by discovering at points where he anticipated they would 

 occur, namely, on the north-west angle of the rock, distinct striae 

 upon a vertical polished surface ; and at its base a nearly horizontal 

 portion of rock, covered with deep striae ; also on the south-west 



