48 PROCEEDINGS OF THK ANATOMICAL AM) ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



hanks of the Clyde. About twenty of these have been discovered at 

 various levels above the present bed of the river. Five of them lay 

 buried in silt under the streets of Glasgow, one in a vertical position 

 with prow uppermost as if it had sunk in a storm. Nearly all of 

 them were formed out of a single oak trunk hollowed out by blunt tools, 

 probably stone axes aided by the action of tire. A few were cut 

 beautifully smooth, evidently with metallic tools. Hence a gradation 

 can be traced from a pattern of extreme rudeness to one showing no 

 small mechanical ingenuity. Two of them were built of planks. In 

 one of the canoes was found a beautifully polished celt or axe of 

 greenstone, and in another a plug of cork which Geikie pointed out 

 could only have come from Southern Europe. 



There can be no doubt that some of the buried canoes are of 

 more ancient date than others. Those most roughly hewn may be 

 relics of the Stone period, those more smoothly cut of the Bronze age, 

 and those built of planks probably come within the Iron age. At the 

 time when this ancient craft was navigating the waters where the 

 city of Glasgow now stands, the whole of the Lowlands which border 

 the present estuary of the Clyde formed the bed of a shallow sea. It 

 is evident, therefore, that the south-west district of Scotland has 

 gradually risen to a higher level. In connection with this gradual 

 upheaval, geologists assure us that there is conclusive evidence in 

 marine deposits far up mountain sides to show that the whole of the 

 British Islands have been submerged beneath the sea, not once, but in 

 three successive epochs, with as many subsequent upheavals, and that 

 at one time there was no German Ocean, but that Britain formed a 

 part of the continent of Europe, and from this it would seem that the 

 lines from a once popular song 



When Britain first at Heaven's command 

 Arose from out the azure main 



is no mere poetical fancy but a statement of a matter of fact. In 

 these far-off ages the mountains were covered with perpetual snow, 

 the valleys filled with glaciers and the surrounding seas with icebergs. 

 It is conjectured that primeval man may have hunted the seal over the 



