252 PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY. chap, xiii. 



named, the occurrence of the mammoth and reindeer in the 

 Scotch boulder clay, as both these quadrupeds are known to 

 have been contemporary with man, fiivors the idea which I 

 have already expressed, that the close of the glacial period in 

 the Grrampians may have coincided in time with the existence 

 of man in those parts of Europe where the climate was less 

 severe, as, for example, in the basins of the Thames, Somme, 

 and Seine, in which the bones of many extinct mammalia 

 are associated with flint implements of the antique type. 



Parallel Roads of Glen Roy in Scotland. 



Perhaps no portion of the superficial drift of Scotland can 

 lay claim to so modern an origin on the score of the fresh- 

 ness of its aspect, as that which forms what are called the 

 Parallel Eoads of Glen Ptoy. If they do not belong to the 

 recent epoch, they are at least posterior in date to the pre- 

 sent outline of mountain and glen, and to the time w^hen 

 every one of the smaller burns ran in their present channels, 

 though some of them have since been slightly deepened. 

 The perfect horizontality, moreover, of the roads, one of which 

 is continuous for about twenty miles from east to west, and 

 twelve miles from north to south, shows that since the era 

 of their formation no change has taken place in the relative 

 levels of different pai'ts of the district. 



Glen Eoy is situated in the Western Highlands, about ten 

 miles north of Fort William, near the western end of the great 

 glen of Scotland, or Caledonian Canal, and near the foot of 

 the highest of the Grampians, Ben Nevis. (See map, p. 254.) 

 Throughout nearly its whole length, a distance of more than 

 ten miles, three parallel roads or shelves are traced along the 

 steep sides of the mountains, as represented in the annexed 

 view, Plate II., by the late SirT. Lauder Dick, each maintain- 

 ing a perfect horizontality, and continuing at exactly the 



