56 ON THE PARALLEL ROADS 



since we see that the middle of the crack, runs nearly in the 

 line of the river Lochy, whilst the western termination of the 

 supposed Loch Spean must have been above Highbridge. It 

 is therefore probable, that the small hills that are scattered 

 like an elevated moor, in a semicircular form, from Ben-y- 

 vaan, by Highbridge, to the projection of Aonach-more, are 

 the remains of the shattered barrier, towards the destruction 

 of which the discharge of the lake added the immediate assist- 

 ance of a tremendous rush of water. The appearances at the 

 Mouth of Glen Gluoy, and particularly the manner in which 

 the shelf of that glen suddenly stops, on the south-east side, 

 whilst it comes farther down on the north-west side of the 

 valley, would rather seem to indicate, that a smaller crack, 

 (of which there would naturally be several,) branching off" from 

 the great rent, had taken a zigzag direction, somewhat in the 

 bent line formed by the mouth of Glen Gluoy and the Glen of 

 Fintack ; and indeed the whole appearance of this tributary 

 glen would induce one to espouse such a supposition. 



If it be at all admitted, that these lakes ever had existence, 

 which I presume to suppose can hardly be doubted, I have 

 already shown, that the whole water discharged from them, 

 must have run towards the Eastern Sea. If this was the case, 

 it appears to me to be impossible to account for the disappear- 

 ance of the terra jirma which shut in their western or upper 

 extremities, in any other way than by the means I have sug- 

 gested ; — means which were fully adequate to produce at once 

 the discharge of the united Loch Spean and Roy, and of the 

 independent Loch Gluoy. It even appears to me to be not 

 unlikely, (though I do not consider the aid of such a supposi- 

 tion to be absolutely necessary to my theory), that in a coun- 

 try where such a great convulsion was to happen, some previ- 

 ous throes might have manifested themselves, which might have 



even 



