470 Bibliographical Notice. 
Glasgow would have multiplied her people tenfold in a century, 
unless the great estuary of the Clyde had opened its bosom to fleets 
from many lands—unless she had possessed those stores of coal and 
iron that furnish the means and materials of her increasing labours. 
And our ancient metropolis in the east—were not the true founda- 
tions of Edinburgh then laid when internal fires pushed up through 
the level shales and sandstones that grand basaltic prism under 
whose protecting shadow first clustered the few rude huts which the 
toil and taste of her citizens have expanded into the stately streets 
and squares of modern Athens? And turning to a higher, less 
material product, is not the thought of the nation, its intellectual 
life, born of the soil, fed and nourished by the land in which we 
live? Is not the free exuberant poetry of Burns the genuine pro- 
duct of the banks and braes of Bonny Doon? Does not the romantic 
chivalry of Scott ever reflect Tweed’s silver streams and Yarrow’s 
dowie dens? And the dreamy ghost-like strains of Ossian, if they 
grew not up amid the grey rocks and mist-shrouded glens of Morven, 
were they not at least nursed under the gloomy shades of the pine- 
forests of Strath-Spey ? 
“There is not a more striking feature in the history of Scotland 
than the tenacity and success with which she maintained her national 
independence. Driven into a corner by her more powerful neigh- 
bour—cut off from retreat by barren hills and a stormy ocean, with 
much to lose by resistance, much to gain by yielding, she fought on 
for long centuries, and at length gave her king to her rival, and 
formed a free alliance with the freest nation in the world. How 
this was possible, a glance at the physical structure of the country 
will at once tell. But that structure is only the outward expression 
of internal geological phenomena. In the geological map the 
different formations are shown by colours. You will see how they 
run in lines across the country from shore to shore. Each band of 
colour marks a distinct formation. Some are igneous, others 
stratified. Some, hard and tenacious, naturally form mountains ; 
others, softer and more yielding, valleys. Thus each geological forma- 
tion became a true line of fortification. Every mountain-ridge was a 
wall ; every valley a broad ditch, across which the southern invaders 
had to force their way. Usually they turned the flank of the first line 
of the Cheviots—came in by the east or west marches. But the 
second line of wall—the Southern Highlands, stretching from shore 
to shore, from St. Abb’s Head to Stranraer—could not be so turned. 
Then, beyond, comes the wide ditch of the Firth of Forth, which 
no engineer had then ventured to bridge. North of it lies the third 
wall, of the Ochills, and the third river and Firth of the Tay. 
Deeper still rose the frowning barrier of the Grampians, backed by 
an interminable labyrinth of hills and glens, of winding straths, and 
fordless sea-lochs. No wonder the Roman eagles retreated from this 
region, and the conquerors of the ancient world fenced off its fierce 
tribes by walls and towers. Its peculiar character shutting out this 
mountain-land from all intercourse with other portions of the king- 
dom, gave it a people of its own, with special habits, traditions, and 
history.” 
