133 



cliffs are of saucl-stoue, belonging to a part of the Old Red Group, and 

 the caves are due to the action of waves at cue time beating against 

 them. 



Professor Ramsaj, in his account of the Geology of Arran, says : — 

 " It ^nll have been observed that an ancient sea-cliff overhangs the 

 narrow plain intervening between the sea and the ascent of the hill to 

 the north of Brodick. Between this cliff and the road, in what is now at 

 many places ploughed fields, numerous recent shells, often in a perfect 

 state of preservation, are mingled with the soil. The presence of these 

 shells in such a locality, sufficiently indicates that what is now culti- 

 vated ground was formerly the sea-shore, which must, therefore, have 

 been elevated to its present position above the tidal level, by subsequent 

 "upheaving agencies." 



I visited this place in the summer of 1849, and obtained from the 

 sides of a ditch, in what was then a field waving with corn, many 

 specimens of shells. They are broken and worn ; but when it is 

 remembered they were found at some distance from the sea, and at a 

 much higher level than the sea ever reaches now, they are not without 

 interest. From my note-book I cojDy the following account of my finding 

 these shells : — " I had looked for the evidences of the ancient beach, 

 all along, but as yet had not picked up any shells. When we had 

 jiassed Port-Na-Claoch, and were stiU a mile or so north of Markland 

 Point, I asked an old man who was working on the road, whether he 

 had seen any, as now, from the profuse vegetation, I could see none. 

 He said he had often ' dug marl when he crofted a bit there,' and bade 

 me look behind the first rock, ' which,' he said, ' keppet the shells 

 when the tide gaed oot ;' ' for,' added he, ' the sea has been ower a' this, 

 an' up at the rocks yonder, for the auld road gaed aboon there.' I did 

 as he recommended, and in the first hollow, behind a mass of rock, at 

 the edge of a corn-field, I found shells." 



A little farther np the Frith are the islands of the Greater and Lesser 

 Cumbraes : the former well known from the favourite watering place of 

 Millport, and the new Scotch Episcopalian College, situated on it. On 

 the lesser Cumbrae, which is little more than a great rock, the same 

 ancient beach is distinctly observable. On one end of this island, an 

 old tower of extreme antiquity is built on the raised beach. Here, 

 as in Arran, the beach is fiat and narrow, very little raised above the 

 present level of the sea, and immediately flanked by cliffs, rising abruptly 

 from it. I have not landed on this beach, and do not know if it yields 

 fossil evidence of its pristine character. 



The Island of Bute presents us with the same i)hysical conformation. 



