128 Charles Maclaren, Esq., on the Existence of 



The finer ones, however, can only be seen when the rock is 

 wetted. What is very remarkable, some of the grooved sur- 

 faces are imder the high-water level ; and though they must 

 have been washed twice a-day by the tide for a very long 

 period, the grooves are not yet obliterated. In explanation 

 of the fact, I may remark, that the loch being land-locked, 

 will be rarely if ever agitated by storms, and that the beach 

 here is covered not with sand, but with shingle or coarse 

 gravel, which the tide probably seldom disturbs. 



At d on the side of a little hillock, close to the road, and 

 100 yards from the loch, there is a slab facing the east, about 

 8 feet high, and 2 feet broad, and inclined at 20 degrees to 

 the horizon. It is covered from end to end with transverse 

 striae, which are parallel to one another, nearly horizontal, 

 and from a quarter of an inch to an inch in breadth. Since 

 I left Gare Loch in August, I learn from a friend that this 

 beautiful specimen of striated rock is about to be removed, 

 in order to widen the road. 



At a cottage b on the east side of the road, the groovings 

 are seen in the shape of shallow cavities 2 feet or more 

 in width, pointing SSE. In the bed and on the sides of a 

 small burn 100 yards to the westward, others are seen of va- 

 rious sizes, and having the same direction. 



The road from Gare Loch to Loch Long crosses the lowest 

 part of the ridge which divides the two lochs. At a, which is 

 the summit level of the road, and 270 feet above high water 

 in Gare Loch, the rock has been exposed by the removal of 

 3 or 4 feet of soil near two cottages, and exhibits coarse and 

 fine strise in the most distinct manner, and with the usual 

 SSE. bearing. Similar markings are observable at many 

 points along the road; and wherever the turf and peat permit 

 the slate to be seen, though strise may be no longer visible, 

 the prominent parts of the rock are smoothed or " dressed.'' 

 Knolls are seen 20 feet or 20 yards in breadth, which are 

 nicely rounded oif on all sides, and seem to have precisely 

 character of the roches moutonnees observed in the Alpine 

 valleys where glaciers formerly existed.* Occasionally the 



* Plate Vni. of the Atlas to Agassiz's Etudes sur les Qlacier$, gives a 

 most distinct idea of these rounded eminences. 



