F/oo(/s and Forestry. 771 



a descent in the space from 2,100 to that of 100 feet above the 

 sea level. The inhabitants of some houses in Dollar were that morn- 

 ing awakened by other noises than the usual quiet rippling flow of 

 this streamlet, — harsh rasping sounds of huge boulders grating, 

 capsizing, and breaking, and above all a thundering noise of a head- 

 wave, lasting only a quarter of an hour, but whieh indicated the 

 time of most of the damage. The hills at and beyond Dollar lose 

 much of the abrupt face so characteristic of them without coming 

 up the valley, and now take on a thicker alluvial covering. Along 

 the course of the burn is lirst the alluvial soil, then a thick bed of 

 gravel and boulders, which geologists call boulder clay ; this again 

 rests on thick beds of clay, probably remnants of the time when the 

 Forth washed the base of the hills. The head -wave exerted its 

 force on the boulder clay and surface soil. In the Castle Campbell 

 glen just below the ruin a bridge was swept away, and on a sward 

 where wild roses used to gro^\', a long embankment of boulders, 

 many of them several tons in w^eight, and in some places four feet 

 high, was raised. So much lor the constructive power of this 

 mountain torrent. On entering Dollar it began to show its destruc- 

 tive effects on a public road running on either side of it. It cut il 

 in three or four places, notal)ly where at one place it cut not only 

 through the thirty feet of roadway and past, taking a garden plot and 

 the front wall of a twin villa ; pianos, chairs, and other household 

 goods sailing downwards to testify to the thoroughly awakened inha- 

 bitants below of the violence of the toiTcnt. A huge monument 

 of gravel boulders and sand was soon raised to this at a low bridge 

 where the stream is crossed by the raih\'ay. The head-wave appears 

 to have lost its transporting poN\c'r here. The torrent, thus prevented 

 from joining the Devon, burst down the I'ailway line, ultimately 

 breaking the embankment, so as temporarily to stop the traffic. It 

 took over 500 waggon loads to remove this accumulated heap of 

 boulders and gravel ; nearly .3,000 tons of matter must have been 

 accumulated here in little more than an hour. The embankment up 

 the glen must repi'csent at least an equal weight of stones cairied Ity 

 the torrent. Over £2,500 m-III be required to repair tlu' ravages done 

 to the municipal works of Dollar alone. A few miles fuither nortli 

 damage to the extent of £350 was done at the same time on the 

 estate of Air. Christie, of Cowden. Here, also, ^,a\\ of the public, 

 road was washed away. 



Clumps of trees grow at irregular intervals along the sides of Dollar 

 burn. Their site marks spots where the banks withstood the torrent ; 

 the bare portions mark where large slices were washed away. This 'v& 

 markedly the case just at and above the site of the wrecked twin 

 villas. Again, note that the stream began to ravage the banks just 



