I860.] The Scenery of Scotland. 715 



It appears to us that these two cases precisely represent the 

 difference between the exploded view that heat is matter, and the one 

 which regards it as the mode in which matter is moved ; either the 

 author is wrong in his science, or there is a want of clearness in his 

 diction which we have noticed elsewhere in the work. 



This does not, however, detract in any material degree from the 

 merit of a beautiful and edifying scientific essay, to which, as well as 

 to Dr. Tyndall's treatise, we desire to accord all honour and praise. 



THE SCENEEY OF SCOTLAND.* 



With the exception of Scandinavia, there is no country in Northern 

 Europe whose physical features more boldly challenge the investiga- 

 tion of students of nature than Scotland. Geographers, whose province 

 often extends only to the outline and surface, have never failed to 

 point out the striking contrast of its eastern and western shores, 

 attributing the more deeply indented margin of the latter to the fierce 

 assaults it has experienced from the Atlantic breakers, forgetting, 

 however, that many of its deepest bays and fiords stretch inland at 

 right angles to the direction of the waves, and can, therefore, in no 

 way be attributable to their action. Nor has the surface of the 

 country attracted less attention than its outline. The stern and wild 

 region of the Highlands, divided by the deep channel of the Cale- 

 donian Canal ; the lofty rampart of the Grampians ranging from sea 

 to sea across the island, and forming the physical boundary of the 

 Lowlands; the broad undulating valley of central Scotland, stretch- 

 ing southwards from the base of the Grampians, and deeply indented 

 on both sides by the Firths of Clyde and Forth, and bounded on the 

 south by " The Southern Uplands," as they are termed by the author, 

 — a region of high swelling moorlands and narrow valleys, neither so 

 lofty nor bold as the Highlands, yet attaining in Merrick an elevation 

 of 2,764 feet. 



Mr. Geikie enters upon the task of expounding the physical 

 changes which have resulted in the scenery of Scotland with all the 

 enthusiastic love and admiration which every Scot bears his native 

 land, and to which Scotland's great poet gave such memorable ex- 

 pression — 



" Land of my Sires ! What mortal hand 

 Can ere dissolve the filial band 

 That knits me to thy rugged strand ? " 



while he is at the same time thoroughly imbued with the more 

 " advanced " theories on the subject of atmospheric denudation and 

 glacial erosion. The author is also a warm supporter of Professor 

 Eamsay's theory of the glacial origin of lakes, and, with many of the 

 younger geologists, he maintains the sufficiency of frost, snow, and ice, 



* ' The Scenery of Scotland, viewed in connection with its Physical Geology.' 

 By Archibald Geikie, F.R.S. Macmillan & Co. 



VOL. II. 3 o 



