Reports and Proceedings. 267 



whicli are seen at and below low-water-mark in numerous British es- 

 tuaries. Mr. Smyth then described the submerged forests of the Firth 

 of Tay, Largo Bay ; and various deposits of peat containing remains 

 of trees underlying marine strata, but in which no human remains 

 or works of art have ever been found. At the close of this period 

 of submergence the land was again elevated, and terraces and pro- 

 minent escarpments near the present shore-lines were formed. 

 These escarpments, the bases of which are from 25 feet to 30 feet 

 above high-water-mark, seem to afford almost direct evidence that 

 the sea once washed against them. Ancient oyster-scalps and remains 

 of other recent shells have likewise been discovered in many places 

 along our shores at considerable heights above high- water-mark, all 

 lying beneath a depth of several feet of stratified sand and gravel. 

 Mr. Smyth then stated that he had traced an ancient oyster-scalp 

 situated between Portobello and Seafield, Yrom the height of 2 feet 

 to 43 feet above high-water-mark, beneath a stratified deposit of 

 sand and gravel, nearly a quarter of a mile from the sea. One writer 

 (Mr. Alexander Bryson, of Ilawkhill, Edinburgh, in a paper read 

 before the Geological Society of Glasgow, an abstract of which was 

 reported in the Geological Magazine, Vol. I., 1865, p. 277) had 

 stated that this oyster-scalp, like a similar one, 60 feet above the sea, 

 near Inveravon on the Forth, had been storm-raised, but this was 

 quite impossible. Wa\es caused by earthquakes rise to a great 

 height, but it had been ascertained by actual measurement that no 

 storm wave, even in the greatest hurricane, ever reached, either in 

 the open sea or along a level coast such as that near Portobello, a 

 greater altitude than 28 feet. Along a rocky coast the waves and the 

 spray reach a much greater altitude, owing simply to the waves 

 acting against a barrier, but, during the greatest storm within the 

 memory of man, the sea-wreck only reached the height of five feet 

 above ordinary high-water mark. It would therefore be absurd to 

 suppose that those shells near Portobello, and at such a quiet place 

 as Inveravon, so far from the fury of the open sea, could be storm- 

 raised. Such a storm would destroy Leith, Portobello, North Ber- 

 wick, part of Kirkcaldy, and hundreds of towns and villages along 

 the coast. Mr. Smyth stated that beds of shells lying beneath 

 stratified deposits of sand and gravel, &c., had been found near 

 Newbigging, at Drip, four miles west of Stirling, and at Aberlady 

 and Dirleton, at heights varying from 12 feet to 25 feet above high- 

 water-mark, and at considerable distances from the sea. Such beds 

 could only have been deposited when the land was considerably 

 lower than at present. The Pholas crispata, a boring moUusk 

 which is very abundant in the Firth of Forth, furnishes conclusive 

 evidence of this upheaval. Its habitat is never higher than half- 

 tides, and it generally bores a hole of from a quarter of an inch to 

 half an inch in diameter, chiefly in shale, fire-claj'', and in all rocks 

 that are softer than its own shell. The Pholas commences to bore 

 when young, it widens its house as it grows old, and this house 

 becomes its grave. A short time before his death, the late Hugh 

 Miller showed the author Pholas-looiings at Joppa, in fii'e-clay, 



