Dugald Bell — Notes on Glen Roy. 321 



ranged on their side. Agassiz and Buckland, twenty years earlier, 

 Mr. Jamieson, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Henry James, Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, Dr. James Geikie, Professors Tyndall and Prestwich — 

 Darwin also, who at first favoured the marine theory — have all in 

 succession adopted and illustrated this view. What " authorities " ■ 

 can be named on the other side? Professor Bonney himself 

 excepted, we are aware of none since the late Professor Nicol, of 

 Aberdeen, who wrote on the subject thirty years ago. 



Ten or twelve years before that time, Sir Charles Lyell, in the 

 earlier editions of his " Manual," observed with regard to the formation 

 of these " Roads " — " The problem is only solved in part ; a large 

 number of facts must be collected and reasoned upon before the 

 question can be finally settled." ' But seven or eight years after- 

 wards so much progress had been made in this work, by Dr. 

 Jamieson and others, that Sir Charles, reviewing the whole evidence 

 anew, was satisfied that " the Glen Roy terrace-lines, and those of 

 some neighbouring valleys, were formed on the borders of glacier- 

 lakes." 2 We take Sir Charles to have been an ideal ''judge " in 

 geology ; clear, impartial, painstaking, competent ; always prepared 

 to follow where well-tested evidence led. We ask, what has 

 transpired since then that we should now be taken back to the point 

 which he abandoned more than thirty years ago ? Why should his 

 later decision in the matter be ignored, the evidence on which it 

 rested set aside, and the history of these " Roads " still spoken of as 

 ' likely to remain among the controversial questions of geology," 3 

 as if nothing had been attempted, nothing done, no fresh facts 

 collected or additional light gained, for more than a generation ? 



It will be admitted that among the first merits of a good judge 

 are precision in the citation of similar cases ("chapter and verse" 

 being usually given), and clearness in distinguishing between those 

 which bear directly on that in hand, and those which only affect it 

 remotely, if at all. But even the " common juryman " can see that 

 Dr. Bonney's " instances " are frequently of the vaguest and most 

 unsatisfactory kind. 



"The advocates of the marine origin," we are told, "call attention 

 to the fact that terraces of a rather similar kind occur at lower levels 

 in other parts of Scotland, especially on the western coast" (p. 97). 

 Doubtless some one, to us unknown, has used the argument in this 

 form (the italics are ours) ; but we wonder that Dr. Bonney should re- 

 peat it as of any value. The essential points to be stated are, Where, 

 and at what level, are the " terraces " referred to ; and then we may 

 be able to judge how far they assist us in Glen Roy. Again, with 

 regard to the difficulty, on the marine theory, of the uniformity of 

 the subsequent re-elevation — it being "improbable that the whole 

 valley, about ten miles long, would b« uplifted to the same amount " 

 — Dr. Bonney gives as the answer to this, that " in other parts of 

 Scotland, terraces admitted to be of marine origin alter their level 



1 Fifth edition, 18/55, p. 89. 



2 " Antiquity of Man," p. 264 (1863). 

 :i "Ice-Work," p. 107. 



DECADE IV. — VOL. III. — NO. VII. 21 



