C H3 ] 



XV. On thd Geology of Loch Leven, in conthmalion of Article 

 in Phil. Mag. of September IS 19. By Mr. (javin Ingi-Js. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



Sir, — VV HEN in London in May last, I mentioned the grounds 

 1 had for believing in the existence of a stratified galvanic con- 

 nexion and internal communication extending under the districts 

 of Loch Leven in Kinross-shire, Comrie in Perthbhire, Inverness- 

 shire, and all those parts of tlie country that have of late years 

 been so frequently visited with the fearful phaenoniena of earth- 

 quakes. Of this I can no longer entertain a doubt. These 

 convulsive throe? of nature are undoubtedly the effects of a stra- 

 trfied galvanic influence, violent in proportion to the resistance 

 opposed to the escape of the elastic matter produced in the de- 

 composition of old, and in the formation of new, combinations 

 resulting from the incessant workings of these stratified galvanic 

 piles, of Nature's construction. 



To occupy your valuable pages with speculative theories, would 

 be very foreign to my present purpose; I shall confine myself 

 alone to facts as they occurred, and to observations «leduced from 

 an attentive inquiry into the present and foruier geological state 

 of the lake, undertaken with a view to furnish you with one con- 

 nected account. 



This, however, from w'ant of time, I have never been able to 

 accomplish, and must therefore content myfelf in the present 

 instance with some extracts from my notes, that may he of some 

 general use to the geologist — to the geology ot these districts 

 in particular. 



You are already acquainted with the remarks and observations 

 of George Braid, the old residenter on the banks of the Leven, 

 respecting the muddy waters discharged fiom the lake in August 

 1816, and his declaring " that he had never seen the waters in 

 such a state before but once, and that was when an earthquake 

 happened at Comrie ; and," continued he, " an earthquake has 

 happened somewhere, be where it may." Curiosity, as I stated 

 in that communication, induced me to trace the troubled waters 

 to the lake, and to calculate the time necessary for the waters 

 issuing from their outlet to reach the Bleach- field, and found it 

 to agree as near with the time of the shock at Inverness, as you 

 could well suppose the clocks and watches of tlie two districts 

 to do. But to give a connected detail of the circumstances that 

 led me to form this conclusion, I must retrograde, and go back 

 to summer 1815, and state, that although there is no record of 

 any shock of an earthquake at the period I allude to, so far as I 

 remember ; neither have I heard of any iremhlcment (le terra in 



Vol. J:. No. 2(]2. /'U. 1820. 11 these 



