EXCURSION I. 55 



smithy at Invercloy, and worked up into vaiious articles, we 

 think there cannot be a doubt, from the accounts given, by 

 several persons still living, who saw it and handled it. All 

 agree, howevei 1 , in fixing the locality in which it was found 

 at a place where peat is cut, at a considerable height on the 

 southern hill side, and therefore far above the level at which 

 the waters of the sea stood before that last elevation of the 

 land to which we have so often alluded already. If the 

 discovery, then, be admitted as a fact by the archaeologist, it 

 is entirely without that geological significancy which attaches 

 to the canoes found in the holms on the banks of the Clyde 

 and within the city of Glasgow, which clearly shew great 

 changes of level. 



26. The contact of the lower old conglomerate with the 

 clay slate is not seen in Glen Rosa. The latter rock first 

 appears in the bed of the stream, at the sharp turn where 

 it begins to flow eastwards; but the junction must be 

 farther down the burn. The slate rises high into the hills 

 on both sides, forming on the north the principal mass of 

 Glen Shant rock, called also the Pillar, from a large isolated 

 sheet or prism, standing out detached from the front of the 

 bold cliff". The precipice is about 1100 feet above the river, 

 and forms one of the finest features of this noble glen. 



We now approach the base of the series, where the central 

 granite rises from beneath the enveloping slate rocks; and 

 here a celebrated junction occurs in the bed of the stream. 

 The hill sides shew the contrast of the two rocks from a 

 great distance, in the bare stony character and loose gray 

 blocks on one part, and the grassy or heath-covered slopes, 

 with dark terraced ledges, on the other; and the geologist is 

 therefore prepared to find a junction somewhere here in such 

 a natural section as the river affords. It occurs about two 

 or three dozen yards below the point where the Rosa burn 

 receives from the west side its only tributary the Garbh-Alt 

 or Rough burn, which drains the whole eastern side of the 

 Ben-Ghnuis range, and comes down into the glen, bounding 



