Dagald Bell — The "Great Submergence." 29 



(2) This difficulty, while of weight in regard to the country 

 generall}', applies with peculiar force to the district ai'ound Clava — 

 to the Great Glen in its immediate neighbourhood, and to the 

 numerous side glens and valleys where, as the advocates of sub- 

 mergence themselves admit, traces of the sea, if it had been there, 

 would have had the greatest likelihood of being preserved. 



During such a submergence the Great Glen (or Caledonian Canal) 

 and its chain of lakes would form a long, deep, intersecting arm 

 of the sea, stretching from side to side of the country. The highest 

 part of the Canal at Loch Oich is not more than 105 feet above 

 the sea, so that, when the submergence was about 600 feet, the 

 sea must have risen 500 feet along the hills on either side of 

 the summit-level of the Great Glen. At 1000 feet all the hills 

 of moderate elevation would be well-nigh half-submerged ; and at 

 the same time, it must have extended far up into every side glen, 

 of which there are many, receiving and spreading out deposits 

 there in every bay and inlet and sheltered recess of the land. And 

 it must have done so for a long time, as those who require a submer- 

 gence to account for thick deposits of fine clay must admit. How 

 is it, then, that no traces of the sea have been discovered on either 

 side of the Great Glen, at any one of the many elevations which the 

 sea, by hypothesis, reached up to 600, up to 1000 feet? Neither 

 in the main glen, nor in any of the side glens, has a single marine 

 shell-bed, or bed of marine sand and gravel, or slope of wave-worn, 

 cave-hollowed, or perforated rock been detected. The beaches of 

 the old glacier-lakes in Lochaber are still clear as daylight, while 

 the great ocean, sweeping to and fro across the country, and going 

 into every nook and crevice of it, and full of life, has in all these 

 places left " not a wrack behind " ! 



(3) The supposition that the traces of the sea were removed by 

 a subsequent glaciation was examined on a former occasion, and 

 found to be untenable.^ Besides, if a subsequent glaciation 

 ploughed out and removed all the marine beds deposited during the 

 submergence (which seems impossible), then the Boulder-clay, the 

 product of that glaciation, should undoubtedly be full of more or 

 less broken and abraded marine organisms, instead of being, as 

 a rule, entirely destitute of them. This has been admitted to be a 

 difficulty which cannot well be got over.- 



(4) A submergence of 1000 feet, or even much less, must in all 

 probability have extended over a wide area. How far did the 

 supposed submergence at Clava extend ? In Caithness there is no 

 evidence of any such submergence. In the southern part of the 

 country the ice has come from the interior seaward, and the 

 Boulder-clay there contains no shells. In the northern part, owing 

 to the blocked condition of the North Sea, the ice has curved round 

 and been pressed on to the land again, and there the Boulder-clay 

 is full of shells and shelly fragments. Similarly, in Aberdeen the 



1 Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow, vol. ix, p. 109. 



2 Geol. Mag., August, 1895. 



