208 Mr. Bowman on the Natural Terraces 
from a distant point, nor when standing upon or near them, 
do they anywhere exhibit to the eye the continuity, the pa- 
rallelism, or the perfect horizontality, either of level or of sur- 
face, so strikingly displayed in those of Glen Roy. Indeed, 
they are for the most part so broken and interrupted, and 
the detached portions often so obviously deflected from the 
horizontal plane; notwithstanding a general parallelism, that it 
is difficult to conceive them to have been formed by water. I 
think that most geologists would pass. through the district, 
and even walk over them, without being aware of anything 
peculiar, unless their attention were specially directed towards 
them. This obscurity naturally led me to a more close ex- 
amination of the limited portions I had the opportunity of 
visiting; and as some of the appearances did not strike me 
as being the result of tidal action, I have thought that in the 
present state of our knowledge of them, the cause of truth 
might be advanced by directing the attention of geologists 
towards those points which seem to be still obscure, notwith- 
standing the conclusion at which we must arrive from the 
general coincidence of the levels across intervening valleys. 
I first ascended the northern flank of the Eildon hills from 
the valley of the Tweed at Melrose, passing from the old red 
sandstone, which forms the general surface of the district, to 
the greywacke, and from it again to the red compact felspar, 
which has burst through both, and forms the greater portion 
writings of Sir W. Scott, are surpassed by none, to ask if he could point 
out any passage showing that he was aware of the existence of these 
terraces. I quote a portion of his reply :—‘ I believe I can answer you 
with positive certainty, and, as you say, ‘ at once,’ (for my memory, as 
honest Parson Evans says, was always pretty ‘ sprag,’) that though he very 
frequently, up and down, makes particular and fond mention of the Eildon 
hills, and places about Melrose, I am very sure he never notices any par- 
ticular geological formation in those mountains, or surely it would have 
struck me, especially when similar to the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, 
which I viewed with such intense interest in your society. In the ‘ Monas- 
tery’ he gives a very minute and beautiful description, at some length, of 
a narrow valley above Melrose, there called Kennaquhair, down which a 
small river falls into the Tweed; but not one word of stone-ology, or any 
part of natural history, in which poets in general are miserably ignorant. 
From this censure, I must, however, except our matchless Shakspere, and 
old father Chaucer,”’ &c. &c. 
Had Sir W. Scott been aware of these terraces, he would surely have 
interwoven some notice of them with the story of Mary Avenel. How much 
to be regretted that his fine spirit should have passed away in ignorance of 
the most interesting natural feature of a district he has so well immortalized ! 
But “non omnes omnia possumus ;’’ and to use his own nervous language 
in another place, ‘‘they have a’ their different turns, and some can clink 
verses,—and some rin up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stanes 
to pieces wi’ hammers, like sae mony roadmakers run daft,—they say it is 
to see how the warld was made!”’ 
