BRITISH POSTGLACIAL & RECENT DEPOSITS. 383 



Scotland than in other parts of the British area, I shall commence 

 with a short account of the Scottish series. 



The Scottish beds consist of gravel, sand, clay, silt, and peat, 

 or of marine, estuarine, freshwater, and terrestrial formations. 

 The marine deposits are represented by benches and terraces of 

 gravel and sand, which are more or less well charged with the 

 relics of a fauna closely approximating in character to that still 

 living round our shores. They are, in short, raised-beaches, 

 marking former levels of the sea. Upon the exposed sea- coasts 

 the postglacial raised-beaches do not attain a greater elevation 

 than 45 or 50 feet. But when these are followed inland along 

 the course of the larger estuaries they are found to rise to a some- 

 what greater height. Twenty-five feet or so lower down occurs 

 the best marked of all the raised-beaches — that upon which 

 most of the seaport towns and villages are built. Sometimes 

 this beach is represented by a mere narrow rock-ledge, at other 

 times it forms a broad plain rising inland with a gentle gradient 

 until it terminates suddenly against what appears to have been 

 the old coast-line. Along the margins of the large estuaries this 

 beach also rises imperceptibly as we trace it inland until it 

 merges with old alluvial flats of fluviatile origin, the surface of 

 which may be as much as 45 or 55 feet above the mean level of 

 the sea. Thus in the estuary of the Tay we have the wide plains 

 known as the Carse of Gowrie, the similar " haugh-lands" of the 

 Earn, an affluent of the Tay, and the broad flats or " Inches " at 

 Perth. The average elevation of the Carse of Gowrie does not 

 exceed 30 feet above the sea, but as we follow the flat land 

 towards Perth we find that it gradually rises until it attains a 

 height above the same datum-line of 38 or 40 feet. Proceeding 

 still farther up the valley the same terrace gradually merges into 

 river-alluvium and gravel at 50 feet or so above the sea. Similar 

 more or less extensive plains occur along the borders and at the 

 heads of most of the Scottish estuaries and firths, such as the 

 Carse of Falkirk and Stirling in the Forth valley, the flats that 

 margin Inverness Firth, Beauly Firth, Cromarty Firth, Dornoch 

 Firth, Solway Firth, Wigton Bay, the Clyde, etc. "Wherever, 



