662 MEMOIR OF REV. JOHN FLEMING, D.D. 
may begin. FLEMING’s intuitive perception of the bearing of this truth, and its 
inherent value, was almost the first axiom he expressed in his philosophical works, 
and it continued throughout a long life as a main topic of his teaching, In this 
year (1814) he contributed to the “Annals of Philosophy” a paper on a bed of Fossil 
shells which occurs to the westward of Borrowstounness. It derives some 
importance from its containing views of the causes of raised sea-beaches adopted 
by its author at this time, and, with his well-known conservancy of opinion, main- 
tained until the last. This bed of shells is 33 feet above high-water mark. It 
contains only such shells as now exist in the adjacent waters, the common oyster 
being the most abundant; more sparingly occur Patella vulgaris, Buccinum unda- 
tum, Purpura lapillus, Littorina littorea, Littorina littoralis, and Tapes pullastra. 
At first, FLemine was inclined to believe that this bed of shells—removed certainly 
ten miles from the nearest oyster-scalp—was a proof of the “ gradual diminution 
of the water of the ocean, and retreat of the sea from the British shores.” But 
the peculiarity of the shells, littoral, laminarian, and pelagic, all mingled in one 
incongruous mass, seems to have arrested his attention, and convinced him that 
no calm slow change of elevation of the land or recession of the sea could at all 
account for the fact of the oyster leaving its deep muddy bed to fraternize with the 
Turbo littoreus on shore. He believed and taught that there had been, throughout 
all the geological epochs of the earth’s history, great changes of elevation of sea and 
land ; but that masses of shells belonging to various zones or depths of the ocean 
should be found all huddled together, could not, he contended, be evidence of the 
recession of the sea, or upheaval of the land. From these facts he concluded that 
this bed of shells had been thrown up by a violent agitation of the sea, when the 
waves rose at least 33 feet above their ordinary limits. Nor was this a hypo- 
thetical conjecture, as Borce, in his “ Historia Scotorum,” relates the effects of a 
storm which took place about the year 1266 in these words :—“ In the séventeenth 
year of the reign of Alexander the Third, a tide very much higher than usual—a 
consequence of storms—overflowed the channels of the rivers, especially the Tay 
and the Forth, and caused an inundation which overthrew many villas, laying 
waste the districts, and occasioned a very great loss both of men and cattle.” 
“ Such a storm,” says FLeminG, “ must have left some visible traces of its exist- 
ence. ‘Tradition indeed mentions one of the effects of this mighty flood, in the 
destruction of a town and in the elevation of the sands of Barrie, at the mouth 
of the Tay. And what prevents us from concluding that the same mighty 
tempest raised from the bottom of the channel of the Frith of Forth the oysters 
and mussels, and deposited them in a regular bed along the banks of the river?” 
We have said that this paper contains his early theory to account for the 
phenomena of raised sea-beaches, and that he never saw any reasons which induced 
him to change his views. These he stated very fully on several occasions, while 
criticising papers on supposed raised sea-beaches read before the Royal Physical 
