326 Dr Buist on the General Vibration, or 



and that of Kinketh to the south, which, doubtless, opened 

 out upon the former beach, and were excavated, with those of 

 Wemyss and Dysart on the north, by the surges of the ancient 

 ocean. 



7. The alluvium of the deltas of our great rivers can only 

 be accounted for on the hypothesis of upheaval. I have 

 rarely met with shell or gravel beaches off the mouths of our 

 great rivers — the deltas or mud deposits, however, in these 

 cases, take the place of the original beach, or covered or con- 

 cealed it, or the whole has been eaten away again up to the 

 verge of the purely fresh water deposit by the advance of the 

 ocean. Streams which run sluggishly, or are partially stag- 

 nant, may give us sandbanks, — silt such as that of the Ganges, 

 the Japtee, the Indus, the Nile, &c., is only precipitated when 

 the water in which it is suspended is permitted, for some 

 time^ to remain in a state of absolute repose. Even were it 

 otherwise, the deposit of silt must be restricted to the limits 

 of the inundation, and yet in fact the inundation rarely ex- 

 tends over more than a mere fraction of the true alluvial delta. 

 The same is the case with our carse-lands in Scotland, clearly 

 consisting of river-silt, yet of silt which could only have been 

 accumulated and consolidated under water in a state of re- 

 pose. The level of our deltas and carse corresponds very 

 closely with that of the most recent of our upheavals, of 

 which, I have no doubt, they form a part. 



8. I now come to the proofs of a descent having occurred 

 anterior to the upheaval. It is, I think, nearly twenty years 

 since Dr Fleming described the occurrence of beds of peat, 

 with tree-roots, obviously in situ^^ both in the estuary of the 

 Tay and in the bay of Largo. The fangs and fibres of the 

 roots are still entire, and fast in the ground as when alive ; 

 the stumps protrude some distance through the peat-bed. 

 Dr Fleming seems at this time to have supposed that they 

 were confined to the bed of the river : he does not appear to 

 have been aware that the peat-bed was found everywhere 

 under the clay of the low carse, surmounted by from 20 to 

 30 feet of alluvium. Peat-beds of a similar nature are found 



* I quote from Dr Anderson's account of the Geology of Fife, given in Swan's 

 Views of Fife, vol. i., p. 215. 



