86 MR SMITH ON THE CHANGE 



3d, Alluvial beds similar to No. 1 ; I have no doubt the) 

 will prove of marine origin, but no organic remains have 

 yet been noticed in them. 



4th, The submarine forests. 



5th, The elevated marine beds described in this and the 

 former paper. 



Above these we find fresh-water deposits, chiefly lacus- 

 trine, containing, along with the bones of the existing races 

 of mammalia, those of the common and fossil elk and the 

 beaver ;-f- but with no such difference in the fauna as de- 

 scribed by Mr Strickland. We cannot, therefore, in Scot- 

 land, as yet, separate them from the recent period. 



and scratches caused by it, on the upper surface of the trap -rocks. 

 Wern. Mem. vol. ii. p. 35. 



Sir James Hall's papers on the revolutions of the earth's surface in 

 the 7th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 page 150, contain not only a most accurate and elaborate account of 

 the " Diluvian facts in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh ;" but also, in 

 my opinion, the most satisfactory explanation. He adopts the sugges- 

 tion of Pallas, that it was owing to submarine volcanic action, and in 

 the true spirit of philosophic induction, sought in the recorded accounts 

 of violent earthquakes for causes which could produce similar effects ; 

 not indeed of the same magnitude, but of the same nature, whilst, 

 at the same time, he tested these by actual experiments. By explosions 

 under water he produced waves resembling those which so frequently 

 accompany earthquakes, and justly observes that " no limits could 

 well be assigned to the magnitude to which such a wave might reach." 



"We are indebted to Sir Woodbine Parish for collecting the his- 

 torical notices of the marine inundations which have accompanied 

 earthquakes on the coast of Chili and Peru, and it is impossible 

 to examine the original authorities without seeing in them causes 

 capable of producing effects analogous to those presented by dilu- 

 vium. Acosta, after describing the earthquake of 1686, observes, 

 that " it caused the like trouble and motion at sea, as it had done at 

 Chili, which happened presently after the earthquake, so as they might 

 see the sea furiously to flie out of her bounds, and to run near two 

 leagues into the land, rising above fourteen fadome." 



In Mr Milne's paper on the coal-fields of the Lothians, there is an 

 elaborate account of it under the name of boulder clay ; and also in 

 Mr M'Laren's geology of Fife and the Lothians. 



+ See Dr NeilPs paper on the beavers of Scotland, Wern. Mem. 

 vol. iii. p. 207. 



