144 Mr Stark on the Discovery of Live Cockles 



fact observed and related by Mr Witham, therefore, of live 

 cockles being found at a distance so considerable from the sea, 

 and at such a height above its level, can only be accounted 

 for by the retrocession of the ocean — or by supposing some 

 great convulsion to have submerged the land, and left these 

 evidences of its effects. In any view the discovery is inter- 

 esting, and similar occurrences will probably lead to a modifi- 

 cation of the prevailing theories. If the shells in question had 

 not been found alive, it might have been conjectured that 

 they had been deposited there at a very distant period, by one 

 of those catastrophes which are supposed to have changed the 

 bed of the ocean, or floated its astonished inhabitants over the 

 land, and an unknown and mysterious antiquity thus assign- 

 ed to shells which might have been alive shortly before. That 

 similar circumstances have, on more occasions than one, misled 

 observers we have little doubt. We have seen specimens of 

 shells from the banks of Lochlomond, which seem, from their 

 appearance, to be in this predicament ; and instead of suppos- 

 ing that these were the remains of animals which had been left 

 there when Lochlomond joined the eastern and western seas, 

 we should conjecture that they had recently lived and died in 

 the very lake on the banks of which they were found. 



In the paper, by Mr J. Adamson, which gave an account of 

 the shells thus found, and which is printed in the Wernerian 

 Transactions, Vol. iv. p. 334, that gentleman says, that " the 

 shells begin to appear about half way between the highest and 

 lowest, or the winter and summer surfaces of the water, which 

 varies in this respect about six feet. After removing a slight 

 covering of coarse gravel, we find a thin bed of clay, of dif- 

 ferent shades of brown, passing into yellow colours, as we de- 

 scend. In the upper, or brown clay, are found shells of the 

 following species : Those marked with an asterisk are doubt- 

 ful. Buccinum reticulatum*, Nerita glaucina, Tellina tenuis*, 

 Cardium edule, Venus striatula, Venus Islandica, Nucula 

 rostrata, young, Pecten obsoletus, Anomia ephippium, young, 

 Balanus communis, Balanus rugosus, Echinus esculentus. 



** A skilful conchologist would discover many others, from 

 the numerous traces of them in the clay. Those shells appear 

 to have been deposited generally in an entire state, and many 

 are found with both valves in their natural position. The Ba- 



