62 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



ignorant observer, are too well described by Mr. A. Geikie* to 

 admit of abbreviation : " In many a Highland glen it is easy 

 to trace the suuccessive backward steps of the ice, as it con- 

 tinued to shrink up into the higher recesses of the mountains. 

 Each moraine shows, of course, a point at which the lower 

 end of the glacier continued for a while stationary, melting 

 there, and throwing down its accumulated piles of rubbish. 

 These moraines may be followed up the valley, mound 

 within mound, each of which represents a pause in the 

 retreat of the glacier, until at last we gain the upper end, 

 where the stream of ice finally shrank up into the snow-fields, 

 and where these, as the climate grew warmer, at last melted 

 away." 



Indeed, all this district is a paradise to the geological 

 student, but we must hasten onwards to its most celebrated 

 features, the Parallel Roads. 



Shortly after leaving Bridge of Roy inn on the mail-coach 

 road to Loch Laggan, rounded masses of rock may be noticed 

 the roches moutonnees of glacialists. Agassiz was reminded 

 by the scenery here of the numerous moraines in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Tines in the valley of Chamounix. To the right, 

 ascending Glen Treig, its sides are scored, smoothed, and 

 rounded by ice-action, while a lake is enclosed by these rock- 

 walls in a depression probably scooped out by a primeval 

 glacier. Far onwards, on the road to Kingussie, the traveller 

 may note evidences of water and ice-action, and the long, level 

 moraines previously described. Nature here tells her own 

 story in characters which it is marvellous should so long have 

 remained unknown to science. A day or two well spent in 

 this district will teach a beginner more of geology than would 

 multitudes of theories and whole libraries of books perused 

 without practically seeing the mighty forces which have shaped 

 the face of the country in their effects upon rock and mountain 



* Scenery of Scotland, p. 193. 



