CHAPTER XIV. 



THE LOCH LOMOND AND OTHER SCOTCH VALLEYS. 



SCOTLAND, similarly to Ireland, is intersected by 

 systems of breaks, but they are in general more 

 intricate and less regular; this resulting apparently 

 from their being so numerous and of so many 

 different ages, the newer deflecting and displac- 

 ing the older. However, in some localities in 

 Ireland, such as N.W. Ulster, W. Connaught, and 

 S.E. Leinster, faults and breaks are just as numerous 

 and complicated. In the Highlands of Scotland, as 

 far as we visited them, we did not meet with a valley, 

 ravine, or lake-basin unconnected with a break. It 

 would also appear that in most cases there is probably 

 a connection between ice action and the lake-basins ; 

 but this denudant seems to have been always led by 

 the faults, breaks, and other shrinkage fissures in 

 the rocks. If it is admitted that lake rock-basins 

 are partly due to ice action, and partly to the con- 

 traction and the displacement of the rocks, all objec- 

 tions now raised against the ice theory would be done 

 away with ; as the hollows at the outset would be 

 formed by the crossing or junction of breaks, while 

 subsequently ice action would lift up and carry away 



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