1S72.] XICOL PARALLEL ROADS Ol' GLEK EOY. 237 



Sir P. Egeeton corroborated Mr. Etheridge's views as to the 

 localization of species of fish, and agreed with him as to the import- 

 ance of recording the exact position of all snch fossils. 



Prof. Eamsat was gratified to find that these connecting links 

 between different genera were being discovered. They seemed to 

 him to foreshadow the time when the word genus would become 

 extinct ; while at the same time the careful researches of the author 

 and others tended more and more to establish the truth of the great 

 Theory of evolution. 



2. On Two SrECiMEJs-s of IscnYODUs from the Ltas of Lyme Regis. 

 By Sir Philip de M. Geet Egebton, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



[This paper is withdrawn by permission of the Council.] 



3. ffoiu the Parallel Roads of Glen Rot ivere formed. By James 

 NrcoL, Esq., E.R.S.E., F.G.S., Professor of Natural History in 

 the University of Aberdeen. 



[Abridged.] 



In a paper on the " Origin of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy," read 

 before the Society and published in the Quarterly Journal for 

 August 1869, I described some physical facts which appeared to 

 me to place their marine origin beyond doubt. So far as I am 

 aware, no attempt has been made to answer that argument. 



But I have been asked " to explain the extraordinaiy coincidence 

 of the sea-level with five (four) successive cols." It has been further 

 asked how, if the same sea filled Glen Roy and Glen Gloy, it 

 formed a road in the latter and none in the former glen ; why are 

 the lines of partial occurrence even in this region — the highest 

 limited to Glen Gloy, the second and third almost to Glen Roy, 

 whilst the fourth extends round both Glen Roy and Glen Spean ? 

 If all the time the same sea filled all these glens, and was liable to 

 the same oscillations of level, why has it formed roads in one or two 

 of them only, not in all ? "Why are not the second and third roads 

 as well seen in Glen Spean as in Glen Roy, and' the Glen-Gloy line 

 not in one onl}' but in all the three ? These questions plainly need 

 to be ansv/ered ; and the answer, in my opinion, forms the key to the 

 whole of the phenomena. 



Facts stated in my former paper proved that, shortly before the 

 formation of the roads, this part of Scotland Avas submerged in the 

 ocean, which laid down the detritus in which they are cut. When 

 the land began to rise, first the summits of the highest hills would 

 appear as detached shoals and islands, on which ice-borne boulders 

 have been deposited. Then more considerable masses of land would 

 emei'ge, separated by narrow marine channels or straits. Glens 

 Gloy, Roy, and Spean were at one time such channels, opening 

 with wide funnel-like mouths to the west, and narrowing towards 



