MR MILNE ON THE GEOLOGY OF ROXBURGHSHIRE. 



tication. They seem also to be derived from a bed of clay on the west bank of 

 the river. 



Before concluding this part of my memoir, I think it right to take notice of 

 some other phenomena, which have lately been brought into notice by the indus- 

 try of Mr KEMP of Galashiels. He was the first person who drew attention to a 

 number of terraces, on the sides of hills in the neighbourhood of that town ; and, 

 on examining the relative levels of these terraces with an instrument, he found 

 almost no case in which a terrace on one hill did not correspond in level with one 

 or more terraces on other hills. Mr KEMP considers that he has discovered no less 

 than fifteen or sixteen terraces, at different levels, and maintains that they have had 

 the same origin as the parallel roads of Glenroy. The height is represented as 

 being about 1300 feet, and the lowest 500 above the sea ; so that there is, on an 

 average, about 50 feet of perpendicular height between each terrace. 



I regret not having had an opportunity of examining fully these phenomena ; 

 for though I am by no means convinced of the correctness of Mr KEMP'S conclu- 

 sion, or of the facts on which he relies, neither is there any thing, on the other 

 hand, which satisfies me that he is mistaken. In fact, I had myself some years 

 ago been much struck, when on Ruberslaw, with a terrace near its top, on the 

 north side, which appeared to correspond in level with one on the Dunion and 

 another on the Eildon Hills. But it was only with a pocket spirit-level that 

 I made the observation, and considering the distance of these hills from one ano- 

 ther, a very small error either in the instrument or in the observation would (in- 

 dependently of refraction) cause a considerable difference in the levels deduced. 



Notwithstanding, however, the difficulty of ascertaining whether these ter- 

 races were exactly on the same level, it would have been a circumstance strongly 

 indicative of their supposed origin, had there been no abundance of such marks 

 on other parts of the same hills. If on twenty hills in the same district there 

 were terraces all very nearly on the same level, and on no other parts of these 

 hills, it would have been difficult to have resisted the conclusion, that they had 

 all been simultaneously produced by a common cause. I soon found, how- 

 ever, that upon almost every hill-side, there were many such marks, an obser- 

 vation fully confirmed by Mr KEMP, who describes no less than fifteen or six- 

 teen terraces, distant from each other only forty or fifty feet. I was thus 

 compelled to seek for other evidence of their origin. 



I proceeded to examine the ten-aces themselves ; and observed, that whilst 

 many of them appeared to be perfectly horizontal, several of them had a decided 

 slope. Indeed, I observe from an account of them by Mr KEMP, with a perusal 

 of which he has favoured me, that " in almost every case, whether these shelves 

 are of greater or less extent, their extremities are rounded over, by bending down 

 hill for some distance ; so that, after repeated examinations, we were at last 

 obliged to abandon the idea, of water alone having run out those terraces." Mr 



