1865.] JAMIESON LAST CHANGES IN SCOTLAND. 179 



structure ; and along some of our Highland rivers, the Dee for ex- 

 ample, we may trace this gravel for more than fifty miles inland, 

 namely, from the sea- coast to their very source in the midst of the 

 Grampians. In some places it is spread out in wide sheets ; in 

 others it lies in large irregular mounds. The sections displaying its 

 internal structure vary greatly in their character. Beds of fine 

 laminated sand occur oddly intermixed with heaps of large pebbles, 

 and often exhibiting very curious undulations. All the materials 

 are usually much water-worn and well washed, so as to be free from 

 muddy sediment. No fossils occur, neither do the stones exhibit 

 the glacial striae. In following up the course of a valley we some- 

 times find a great aggregation of this rolled gravel at certain points, 

 with intermediate spaces along which comparatively little of it 

 occurs. 



There can be no doubt that much of this valley -gravel, as we may 

 call it, has been the result of the long- continued action of the rivers 

 since they came into play after the glaciers commenced their final 

 retreat. Its distribution and mode of arrangement show that it has 

 been deposited by water flowing down the valleys, and as we know 

 that glaciers previously occupied these valleys, there is good reason 

 for supposing that, as they gradually melted and withdrew to the 

 mountains, they would give rise to much watery action. Those who 

 have studied glaciers with most attention tell us that they pro- 

 duce, by friction on their rocky bed, much sand and gravel, which 

 is strewed in front of them by the water issuing from beneath the 

 ice. If, therefore, we conceive a sheet of such gravel to Ke in front 

 of a glacier, and a succession of snowy seasons to cause a temporary 

 advance of the ice, the result would probably be that the end of the 

 glacier would push into the gravel and raise it into a steep curving 

 mound all along its border, and thus form an elongated narrow 

 ridge, such as we see in certain parts of Scotland, where they are 

 sometimes called Tcaims. I do not mean to say that all the kaims 

 have been formed in this way, but many of them probably were. 

 The descriptions of the Himalayan valleys by Dr. Thomson, Dr. 

 Hooker, and Captain Godwin- Austen show that these great glens 

 (which were formerly occupied by glaciers) now exhibit mounds 

 and terraces of gravel which, on a great scale, seem to be an exact 

 counterpart of those in the valleys of our Scottish Highlands ; and 

 it is impossible to read their descriptions without being struck with 

 the close resemblance of the superficial features, not only as regards 

 the gravel-terraces, but also the moraine-heaps, the large trans- 

 ported boulders, and the occasional traces of what seem to have 

 been glacier-lakes. 



In the vaUey of the Spey there seems to have been a large lake 

 extending from Kinrara towards Laggan. The bottom of the valley 

 near Kingussie is filled with deep masses of pure sand, which was 

 well exposed in the cuttings for the Highland railway. In one of 

 these I saw a thickness of 30 feet of the finest sand, without a 

 pebble, passing at the bottom into a sort of silt, but no fossils could 

 be perceived here or anywhere else along the valley. I think this 



