1862.] GEIKIE ELEVATION OF SCOTLAND. 223 



former period. Hence mere coincidence of depth from the present 

 surface of the ground, which is tolerably uniform in level, by no 

 means necessarily proves contemporaneous deposition. Nor would 

 such an inference follow even from the occurrence of the remains 

 in distant parts of the very same stratum. A canoe might be cap- 

 sized and sent to the bottom just beneath low- water-mark ; another 

 might experience a similar fate on the following day, but in the 

 middle of the channel. Both would become silted up on the floor of 

 the estuary ; but as that floor would be perhaps 20 feet deeper in the 

 centre than towards the margin of the river, the one canoe might 

 actually be 20 feet deeper in the alluvium than the other ; and on 

 the upheaval of the alluvial deposits, if we were to argue merely 

 from the depth at which the remains were imbedded, we should pro- 

 nounce the canoe found at the one locality to be immensely older 

 than the other, seeing that the fine mud of the estuary is deposited 

 very slowly, and that it must therefore have taken a long period to 

 form so great a thickness as 20 feet. Again, the tides and currents 

 of the estuary, by changing their direction, might sweep away a con- 

 siderable mass of alluvium from the bottom, laying bare a canoe that 

 may have foundered many centuries before. After the lapse of so 

 long an interval, another vessel might go to the bottom in the same 

 locality, and be there covered up with the older one, on the same 

 general plane. These two vessels, found in such a position, would 

 naturally be classed together as of the same age, and yet it is 

 demonstrable that a very long period may have elapsed between the 

 date of the one and that of the other. Such an association of these 

 canoes, therefore, cannot be regarded as proving synchronous deposi- 

 tion ; nor, on the other hand, can we affirm any difference of age from 

 mere relative position, unless we see one canoe actually buried 

 beneath another. 



Hence the only evidence that remains is that which may be 

 afforded by the character of the antiquities. It is usual to speak of 

 the canoes which have been from time to time exhumed in Scotland 

 as of an extremely rude construction, and as the relics of a very bar- 

 barous people. They are described along with the stone implements 

 of the Stone Period, standing thus as far back in the past as the 

 antiquary can place them *. But it is manifest that most of the 

 Glasgow canoes cannot be spoken of as works of extreme rudeness. 

 One or two of them, indeed, were certainly primitive enough in their 

 construction ; but the Bankton boat could not have been built by a 

 race of savages. It is, indeed, impossible to avoid the conviction 

 that the rough-hewn, fire-burnt oak-trunks must have belonged to 

 an earlier time than that of the smoothly cut canoes, and that these 

 again date further back than the regularly built boat of Bankton. 

 The first class may be a relic of the Stone, the two latter of the 

 Bronze Period, if, indeed, the boat came not within the Period of 

 Iron. We seem to see, in the various stages of mechanical skill 

 shown in these primitive vessels, a record of the gradual progress of 



* See Dr. Wilson's ' Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' chap. ii. 

 VOL. XVIII. PART I. Q 



