558 D. MILNE HOME ON HIGH-WATER MARKS ON THE 
“ When we note that strings of gravel ridges and mounds may sometimes be followed up 
one valley across the dividing col into a totally different drainage system, we cannot but con- 
clude, that ordinary river action is out of the question as an explanation of the phenomena. 
Tn the present state of our knowledge, we appear to have no alternative, but in such cases to 
admit the marine origin of such kaims.” (P. 248.) 
“The same assumption is necessary, to explain the occurrence of those elevated shelves or 
terraces which here and there fringe the slopes of the hills. The shelves of gravel at Eaglesham, 
for example, appear to be ancient sea beaches.” “The highest of these terraces does not reach 
beyond 800 feet above the level of the sea. Similar terraces, however, have been met with at 
greater elevations. I have traced them on the Moorfoots, up to a height of 1050 or 1100 feet ; 
and these, like the Eaglesham beds, seem equally to require the agency of the sea.” (P. 248.) 
“There are yet other considerations which seem to render it extremely probable, that 
many of our kaims have been shaped out by the action of the sea.” (P. 249.) 
I have thought it right to refer to these views of Mr James Gerxig, for 
two reasons—Frst, as one of the surveyors employed on the Geological Sur- 
vey of Scotland, he has had opportunities of extensive observation; second, he 
has, if I mistake not, hitherto ascribed the drift deposits in Scotland to the 
action of land ice. 
I am therefore gratified to find that my own opinions on this point are now 
accepted by a geologist so experienced and acute. 
Assuming, then, that to account for the long parallel ridges of drift mate- 
rials, for the transportation of boulders, and above all, for the accumulation of 
beds of stratified sand at high levels, it is necessary to suppose that the sea 
covered the whole of this district of Scotland, overtopping even the Lammer- 
muir hills,—an explanation is afforded of several other matters noticed in this 
paper. 
In such a sea, the currents would vary in direction according to the con- 
figuration of the sea bottom. Undoubtedly, there seems to have been every- 
where, in Scotland, a very prevailing current from the N.W. But in some places 
we find a deflection :—and for which, it is not difficult to account. If, as I have 
supposed, there was a kyle or strait across the south of Scotland—the shallowest _ 
part of which is now the watershed between Roxburgh and Dumfries shires— 
it is natural, looking to the direction of the hillranges on each side of the valley, _ 
that the current there should be not from the N.W. but from W.S.W—W. 
by S., and due W. Now, it will be observed, that these are also the direc- _ 
tions of the strize, of the transport of local boulders, and of the parallel ridges. _ 
Then, where it is now sea, off the coast of Berwickshire, the normal N.W. 
current might naturally have been deflected, so as to produce the strize on the 
rocks at St Abb’s and on the Ferne Islands, which all run N. 5 W. 
These differences in the direction of the striating and transporting agent ¥ 
seem to me much more explicable on the theory of a deep sea carrying ice 
than on any other. It also accounts for another set of phenomena—the terraces’ 
and flats which exist, both in Berwickshire and elsewhere, at high levels. 

