﻿James Durham — The "Karnes" of Newport, Fife. 11 



It is evident from the presence of the raised graA^el beaclies pre- 

 viously described that after the final retreat of the glaciers, the land 

 of this district must have been submerged, or, which is much less 

 probable, had risen as the glacier vrithdrew towards the mountains ; at 

 any rate, whether it went down mantled with moraine matter and 

 then rose again, or simply rose out of the sea after the ice-sheet had 

 for ever withdrawn from its shores, foot by foot every part of it 

 would successively form the sea-beach, at first or at last the sea- 

 beach of the mainland, but for the most part of an archipelago of 

 little islands through which the waves of the North Sea rolled to- 

 wards the hills of Angus and Perthshire. We can readily imagine 

 how that old ocean would sweep the stones left by the ice against 

 the rocks and over each other, rolling them backwards and forwards 

 over its changing beach, wearing and rounding them, and spreading 

 them over its bed, the lighter fragments, the fine gravel and sand, 

 away out in its motionless depths, the larger pieces being deposited 

 nearer the shore, while great boulders would scarcely be moved 

 at all. 



Thus, I think the various peculiarities of the construction of the 

 " Karnes" may be accounted for. The great mounds of large unstrati- 

 fied stones, the "Castle Hill " and neighbouring heights, are close to 

 the shore of the islands represented by Newton and Wormit Hills, in 

 a channel where the waves of conflicting tides would toss them con- 

 stantly to and fro, and so prevent anything like orderly stratification, 

 just as we find to be the case on the beach of any exposed part of 

 our coast. Leaving these heights in either direction, we descend into 

 what was the depths of that sea, and find, a§ we would naturally 

 expect, that in a general way the further we recede from the old 

 sea-shore, the finer are the materials which composed its floor and 

 the more orderly their arrangement. 



Having thus explained the source and arrangement of the materials 

 which form our Karnes, we naturally come to the question of their 

 varied forms. How can we account for the form of the lofty " Castle 

 Hill " ? round the base of which, during the construction of the 

 railway, were found traces of an artificial ditch containing black 

 earth and fragments of human bones, pointing to bygone times and 

 struggles when its steep gravelly sides formed a strong position of 

 defence. What force moulded those billow-like ridges that roll 

 round it on all sides as if mimicking the waves of the ocean. Or, 

 more puzzling still, whence this great flat-topped plateau with its 

 angular precipitous side, stretching along the valley like the earth- 

 works of some race of giants ? A tolerably careful examination of 

 many of the slopes and hollows has convinced me that the only answer 

 is, Eain and rivers have shaped them all ! When the lani^ rose out 

 of the sea, the re-arranged glacial moraine matter would form either 

 a gentle seaward sloping plain from the top of its highest ridge to 

 the sea-level, or, what is more probable, it would form a series of 

 successive terraces or steps similar to what we find between Newport 

 and Tayport. The moment either the whole or part of it was exposed 

 to atmospheric influences, the wasting action would begin ; the rain 



