PARALLEL ROADS OF LOCHABER. 105 
Thus moraines are alleged to have been left by the Glen Treig glacier; and 
at Murlaggan there are large mounds, which have been so termed. I have care- 
fully examined these mounds. They are composed entirely of beds of stratified 
sand, or sand and mud;—so that they cannot be moraines. They have been 
deposited by water—either the sea, or the waters of Lake Spean—for they are 
below the level of Shelf 4. So also, in the district between Craig Choinichte, 
Rough Burn and Fersit, there are huge lines of escar,—the materials compos- 
ing which, consisting chiefly of coarse gravel, are at first sight, and when looked 
at from a distance, somewhat like moraines. 
If there was a glacier from Corry N’Eoin, and of the size required to 
form a great ice barrier across Unachan, at least 4 miles long, that 
glacier should have left enormous moraines, both lateral and terminal, on 
Unachan Moor, and on the hill of Teandrich, against which the glacier 
must have pressed. But there are no such moraines. Some appearance of 
a moraine I observed in Corry N’Eoin itself, at a height of about 1100 feet 
above the sea. But if it be a moraine, its position within Corry N’Eoin shows 
that the glacier which formed it never reached so far as the mouth of the glen. 
There have been some things ascribed to the action of glaciers which, as it 
strikes me, are due to a totally different cause. 
(1). The smoothed and striated rocks, high up on the hills, are far above 
the reach of any imaginable glaciers. In my last Memoir, I pointed out 
various examples of such rocks on Craig Dhu at heights from 1400 to 1800 feet 
above the sea. 
Mr Jameson takes special notice of rock smoothings at even greater heights. 
Thus, near the foot of Loch Treig, he mentions smoothings and scorings 
occurring up to 1280 feet; and he adds, “ Not that I can affirm even this to be 
their upper limit; for on the mountain at the opposite side of the gorge I found 
the scoring fade away so gradually at these great heights, owing to the weather- 
ing of the rock, that I was unable to satisfy myself where it ended, perched 
boulders, and rounded surfaces occurring much higher; and even up to the top, 
which I made out to be about 3055 feet bove the sea, the gneiss, though it runs 
here in nearly vertical stratifications (dipping N.W. at an angle of about 70° 
or 80°), ts nevertheless so free of any loose fragments on its surface, and the ends of 
the strata are often so rounded in the outline, as to raise a suspicion that some 
denuding agent has flowed over it, at a period geologically recent” (Geol. Soc. 
Proce. vol. xviii. p. 172). 
This statement, alike of fact and of opinion, coming from a geologist so 
experienced as Mr Jameson, I consider of much importance. It is entirely in 
accordance with the view I have advocated, that perched boulders and smoothed 
rocks, on the sides and tops of mountains, at heights of from 2000 to 3000 feet, 
cannot possibly be ascribed to glaciers, but are due to ice floating in a sea, 
which overtopped the mountains. 
VOL. XXVIII. PART I. 2D 
