Glaciers in Scotland. 195 



moraines. After these preliminary remarks, Dr Buckland proceeds to de- 

 scribe the evidences of glaciers observed during a tour made in the au- 

 tumn of this year, partly before and partly subsequent to au excursion 

 in company with Professor Agassiz. He, however, omits for the present 

 all details respecting parallel terraces, though he is convinced that they 

 are intimately connected with the glacier theory. The observations com- 

 menced in the neighbourhood of Dumfries, and were afterwards extended 

 over a line of country ranging from Aberdeen, by Forfar, Blairgowrie, 

 Dunkeld, Loch Tummel, and Loch Rannoch, to Schihallion and Tay- 

 rnouth, and thence by Crieff, Comrie, Lochearn Head, Callendar, and Stir- 

 ling, to Edinburgh. The tour was subsequently prolonged in England, by 

 Berwick, the Cheviots, Alston Moor, and Sliap Fell, to Lancashire and 

 Cheshire ; but the details of this portion of the series of observations will 

 be given in a paper to be read on the 2d of December. The evidence of 

 the former existence of glaciers in the vicinity of Dumfries, occurs in the 

 picturesque ravine of Crickhope Linn. On emerging from the chasm at 

 the upper end of this ravine, a remarkable example of a long terminal 

 moraine is visible, stretching across the mountain-valley, from which the 

 Dolland Burn descends, to fall into Crickhope Linn. When seen from a 

 distance, it resembles the vallum of an ancient camp, being covered with 

 turf; but is composed of rolled pebbles, chiefly of slate rock, originally 

 derived from the adjacent Lammermuir Hills, and of a few rolled frag- 

 ments of granite. It presents no traces of stratification. The height va- 

 ries from twenty to thirty feet, the breadth of the base is about one hun- 

 dred feet, and the length is four hundred yards, occupying the entire 

 breadth of the valley, except near the centre, where the moraine is inter- 

 sected by a road, and at the west end, where it is traversed by the Dol- 

 land rivulet. To moraines, or the detritus of moraines, Dr Buckland re- 

 fers the gravel and sand which cover the granite table-land between 

 Aberdeen and Stonehaven ; the large insulated tumuli and tortuous ridges 

 of gravel which occupy a tract of one hundred acres near Fordcn, one 

 mile east of Achinbald ; the blocks, and more or less stratified gravel 

 which are spread over the first level portion of the valley of the North 

 Esk, after it emerges from the sub-Grampians; also the ridges and cones 

 of gravel at Cortacby and Piersie, not far from Kirriemuir. Near the 

 summit of the hill which forms the left side of the main valley at the con- 

 fluent point of the Piersie and Prosen valleys, is a polished surface of por- 

 phyry, striated in the direction which a glacier, descending the valley, 

 would have maintained. The vast longitudinal and insulated ridges of 

 gravel, extending two or three miles up the valley east of Blairgowrie, 

 and the transverse barriers, which form a series of small lakes on its west, 

 in the valley of Lunanburn, Dr Buckland considers to be moraines ; also, 

 the lofty mounds composing the ornamental grounds adjacent to Dun- 

 keld Castle — the detritus which covers the left flank of the Tay, along a 

 great part of the road from Dunkeld to Logierait, the left flank of the 

 Tummel valley from Logierait to Killiecrankie, and the left flank of the 



