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



feet of stratified gravel, at a distance of a mile from the margin of 

 the Firth. The surface of the ground was about 3 feet higher than 

 the level of the surrounding part of the Carse, or about 28 feet above 

 high-water-mark; so that the height of the boat-hook above the 

 upper limit of the tide was fully 20 feet. •'* The relic itself," says 

 Mr. Chambers, " was in no respect uncommon. It was pronounced 

 by Rear- Admiral Sir Adam Drummond of Megginch to be such an 

 instrument of its kind as would be used in a man-of-war's launch 

 or a mercantile boat of 3 or 4 tons." It is now preserved in the 

 Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries at Edinburgh. 



No river-flood or violent inundation will account for the position 

 of this interesting relic. The gravelly ridge in which it occurs is 

 surrounded by the finely stratified silt of the flat Carse, and belongs, 

 like all the other similar mounds of the district, to the ordinary slow 

 deposits of the estuary. The inference therefore appears to me irre- 

 sistible that, when this boat-hook was in use, the sea was beating 

 upon these islets of gravel, and depositing around them the dark 

 mud on which the fertihty of the plain now depends. Hence the 

 elevation of this part of the coast of Scotland must have been efl*ected 

 since the introduction of iron into the country. And thus aU the 

 traditions of the district, the names of its rising-grounds, and the 

 character of its antiquities contribute each their independent testi- 

 mony to the fact that a large accession of land has been gained from 

 the sea within a comparatively recent, if not actually within the his- 

 torical period. The historical period dates in Scotland from the year 

 80 of our era, when Agricola first led the Eoman legions across the 

 Tweed. Is there, then, any evidence to connect the elevation of the 

 Scottish coast-line with the time of the Eoman occupation ? 



Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill was the first to assert that since the 

 Antonine Wall was built (about a. d. 140) there could have been 

 no change in the relative position of sea and land, inasmuch as the 

 ends of the wall were evidently constructed with reference to the 

 existing level*. This statement has been the foundation of all the 



during some of the great floods recorded in history. Such an explanation I be- 

 lieye to be not only unlikely, but even impossible. The eifects of a storm must be 

 comparatively slight in so sheltered an estuary as that of the Tay. We can hardly 

 conceive the sea rising upwards of 28 feet above high-water-mark, and flowing for 

 more than a mile inland. Still less can we believe that, if it did so rise, it could 

 deposit 8 feet of sediment over the surface of the Carse. The effect of great floods 

 is not to renovate the land, but to waste it ; and the result of a violent inundation 

 of the Tay would be to sweep away the surface-soil and carry it out into the estu- 

 ary. Lastly, if we could suppose any sediment to have been deposited by such a 

 sea-flood, it would not have been in the form of stratified gravel, but of fine 

 mud and silt ; for the rush of water coming from the sea cordd only carry with 

 it the fine muddy sediment of the estuary, and in crossing the Carse it could get 

 nothing but clay to tear up and re-deposit. No geologist can doubt as to the origin 

 of those gravelly mounds or inches of the Carse. Most assuredly they are not the 

 result of violent inundations, but of the mingling currents of the river and the sea, 

 when the bed of the estuary stood at least 25 feet lower than it does now. As 

 they rose, and the channel shallowed, only the finest silt gathered round their 

 margins, forming now the rich alluvial soil of the Carse. 



* Mem. Wern. Soc. viii. p. 58, and Edin. New Phil. Journ. vol. xxv. for 1838, 

 p. 385. 



