222 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 19, 



at a distance of more than 100 yards back from the margin of the 

 Clyde as it existed before the alterations began, and were chiefly im- 

 bedded in a thick bed of finely laminated sand. 



Most of the Clyde canoes were formed out of single oak-stems ; 

 but two of them were built of planks. Of these the more elaborately 

 constructed was discovered on the property of Bankton, in 1853. A 

 large oak had been cut longitudinally into a mere strip, as the back- 

 bone of the boat, from which a long keel was formed underneath by 

 being simply left standing out, while the back-bone was pared away, 

 so that the keel appeared a mere longitudinal projection from the 

 lower plane of the same strip. Strong transverse ribs were inserted 

 for the skeleton of the back. These were clothed outside with deals 

 about 8 inches broad, and they overlapped each other precisely as in 

 modern clinker- work. The stern was formed of a thick triangular- 

 shaped piece of oak, fitted-in exactly like those of our day. Again, 

 the prow had a neat cutwater, rising about a foot above the gunwale, 

 and giving it rather an imposing eifect, not unlike, on a very small 

 scale, the beak of an antique galley. The length of this curious 

 vessel was 18 feet ; width at the waist 5 feet, and at the stem 3^ 

 feet. When discovered, it was lying Jceel uppermost, with the prow 

 pointing straight up the river. It had probably been capsized in a 

 storm. The planks were fastened to the ribs, partly by singularly 

 shaped oaken pins, and partly by what must have been nails of some 

 kind of metal. The perforations where nails had been were uniformly 

 square, and the marks of their broad heads driven home by smart 

 blows deeply into the wood were very perceptible. None of the 

 nails themselves were, however, to be seen ; but several of the oaken 

 pins were left. They were round, thicker than a man's thumb, and 

 ingeniously formed. The pin, after being rounded, had been sliced 

 in two, and a triangular- shaped tongue inserted ; so that, when 

 driven into the deal, the pin would firmly hold its place*. 



In addition to these canoes, a polished celt of greenstone, a thin 

 piece of lead perforated with nail-holes, and a plug of cork in the 

 bottom of one of the vessels have also been discovered. Such are 

 the remains of human workmanship which have been found in the 

 elevated silt-beds of the Clyde. Do they of themselves afford any 

 indication of the probable period during which this elevation was 

 effected? 



At the outset it must be borne in mind, that the occurrence of 

 these canoes in the same upraised silt by no means proves them to 

 be synchronous, nor even to have belonged to the same archaeological 

 period. The relative position in the silt from which they were exhumed 

 could help us little in any attempt to ascertain their relative ages, 

 unless they had been found vertically above each other. The varying 

 depths of an estuary, its banks of sUt and sand, the set of its currents 

 and the influence of its tides in scouring out alluvium from some 

 parts of its bottom and redepositing it in others are circumstances 

 which require to be taken into account in all calculations as to the 

 relative position of different parts of the bed of the stream in any 

 * Glasgow, Past and Present, pp. 565-6. 



