52 INFERENCES FROM RECENT EXPLORATIONS. CHAP. ill. 



twenty-five feet on the Forth wonkl not lay the eastern 

 extremity of the Eoraan wall at CaxTiden under water, and 

 he Avas therefore desirous of knowing whether the western 

 end of the same would be submerged by a similar amount of 

 subsidence. It has always been acknowledged that the wall 

 terminated ujion an eminence called the Chapel Hill, near 

 the village of West Kilpatrick, on the Clyde. The foot of 

 this hill Mr. Geikie estimates to be about twenty-five or 

 twenty-seven feet above high-water mark, so that a sub- 

 sidence of twenty-five feet could not lay it under water. 

 Antiquaries have sometimes wondered that the Romans did 

 not cany the wall farther west than this Chapel Hill; but 

 Mr. Geikie now suggests, in explanation, that all the low 

 land at jiresent intexwening between that point and the 

 mouth of the Severn was, sixteen or seventeen centuries 

 ago, washed by the tides at high water. 



The wall of Antonine, therefore, yields no evidence in 

 favor of the land having remained stationary since the time 

 of the Romans, but, on the contx'ary, appears to indicate that 

 since its erection the land has actually risen. Recent explo- 

 I'ations by Mr. Geikie and Dr. Young, of the sites of the old 

 Roman hax-bors along the southeini ixxai'gin of the Fix'th of 

 Forth, lead to similar inferences. In the fix'st place, it has 

 long been known that thei'e is a raised beach containing 

 mai'ine shells of living littoral sj^ecies, about twenty-five feet 

 high, at Leith, as well as at other places along the coast above 

 and below Edinbui-gh. Inveresk, a few miles below that city, 

 is the site of an ancient Roman port, and if we suppose the 

 sea at high water to have washed the foot of the heights on 

 which the town stood, the tide would have ascended far up 

 the valley of the Esk, and would have made the mouth of 

 that I'iver a safe and coxnmodious hai-bor; whex'eas, had it 

 been a shoaling cstuaiy, as at pi-esent, it is difllxcult to see 

 how the Romans should have made choice of it as a port. 



