Reports and Proceedings. 323 



Geological Society of Edinburgh. — May 3rd, 1866. — E. A. P. 

 A. Coyne, Esq., C.E., Vice-President, in the Chair.— Mr. George Lyon 

 read a paper " On the occurrence of two Trap-dykes, one on the North, 

 the other on the South side of Edinburgh." The one situated opposite 

 the Archer's Hall, had all the character of an intrusive rock ; the 

 other on the side of the City of Glasgow Bank in Hanover Street, had 

 caused a considerable disturbance and contortion of the strata, which 

 dipped at the point in question at a considerable angle to the north. 



Mr. D. J. Brown read a paper entitled, " Have we had recent 

 upheavals of the shores of the Firth of Forth?" In his intro- 

 duction, he mentioned that numerous papers had been written on the 

 subject, two of the authors — Mr. Archibald Geikie and Mr. Thomas 

 Smyth — contended that there had been an upheaval of the land 

 since the Roman invasion. This had induced him last summer to 

 make an examination of the south coast from South Queensferry to 

 near East Castle. Beginning at the Eerry, he first mentioned Barn- 

 bougie Castle, which, he considered, overthrew Mr. Smyth's as- 

 sertion that the land is at present rising at the rate of five feet in the 

 centurj^ ; because the Castle is more than one hundred years old and 

 the windows of it are nearly reached by the tide, and sixty years ago, 

 when it was still inhabited, the lower appartments must have been 

 filled by the sea. He mentioned the " Roman Eagle," carved on a 

 rock, a little to the West of Cramond village, which Mr. Geikie 

 terms the work of some " idle peasant or truant school-boy." Mr. 

 Brown asked why the idle peasant or truant school -boy should choose 

 for his subject a " Roman Eagle," and how account for its weathered 

 appearance but by its great age. Of the old Roman port at Cramond 

 no vestige now remains, hence it was useless as evidence. Besides, 

 the mouths of rivers have a great tendency to silt up, and are, in the 

 opinion of the author, the worst places to seek evidence on this sub- 

 ject. He then mentioned the bed of shells found at the old quarry 

 near Granton — a bed which must have lain undisturbed for many 

 ages ; but although this bed had been minutely searched, no traces 

 of man had yet been found in it. Mr. Brown next referred to the 

 tide-register at Leith Docks, an old church and burying-ground at 

 North Berwick, and some old graves near Dunbar, to show that 

 there is no rising of the land taking place at present. A portion of 

 the graveyard at North Berwick has been washed away by the sea 

 in consequence of its being near the level of high tides. The church 

 was built in the middle of the twelfth century, and there could have 

 been no material rise since that time. The graves near Dunbar are 

 just about the ordinary high-tide level, and according to antiquaries are 

 about one thousand years old ; hence there can have been no rise of the 

 land since that period — a period which woidd carry us back to within 

 a few centuries of the Roman occupation. Mr. Brown concluded by 

 stating that in the other parts of the coast which he had visited, he 

 could see no evidence that the land had risen since man inhabited 

 the country, and that geologists should suspend their judgment re- 

 garding the upheaval of our shores during the human period until 

 further evidence be adduced. 



