D. MILNE HOME ON THE PARALLEL ROADS OF LOCHABER. 647 
JAMIESON suggested a theory nearer the truth when he asked “ Might not some 
of these curious accumulations known as Lskars, Osar, and Kaims, have been 
formed by a re-extension of the ice ploughing into the old marine beds, and 
forcing them up into long narrow mounds? In some regions, these may have 
arisen from glaciers terminating in the sea.” (Vol. xix. p. 253,) 
The only modification I would presume to make on this suggestion is, that 
instead of glaciers pushing into the sea, and “ploughing the marine beds into 
long narrow mounds,” I would suppose that icebergs, floating through Glen 
Spean and grating on Ben Chlinaig and Craig Dhu, might have produced the 
long ridgy kaim-like mounds referred to.* 
If it be generally agreed, that the land was submerged; that the beds of 
gravel and sand spread over the country are marine, and that many of the 
boulders (especially those on hill tops) cannot have been transported except by 
floating ice, it seems to me more philosophical to use that acknowledged agency, 
for the explanation of other phenomena of the same class (I mean the smoothed 
and striated rocks), than resort to a different agency altogether, whose existence 
is, to say the least, very problematical. 
Before concluding, let me shortly state the views I have taken in this 
Memoir, both on the local question of the Parallel Roads, and on the more 
general questions into which I have been led. 
1st. The valleys in which these roads occur have been occupied by lakes 
which subsided from one level to another, as the blockages of the lakes were 
worn down. 
2nd. 'These blockages consisted of detritus (clay, sand, and gravel). which 
had been spread over the country when it was submerged, and which filled all 
the valleys, up to considerable heights. 
3rd. The blockages were from time to time worn down, and the materials 
composing them removed by the action of rivers, the cutting power of which 
would increase as the sea sank from its original high level to its present level. 
With regard to the more general question it would appear— 
1st. That before these Lochaber Lakes were formed, the whole country 
had been under the sez, and that during this submergence, currents with float- 
ing ice spread gravel, sand, and clay over what was then the sea-bottom, 
filling hollows on what is now the land, and causing rocks to be smoothed and 
scratched by the passage and pressure upon them of stones and pebbles. 
2nd. That the sea prevailed to a height of at least 3000 feet above the 
present sea-level. 
* Tt is not unimportant to observe that all these abnormal lines, in Glen Spean and Glen Roy, are 
in level above the highest of the “ Parallel Roads.” The sea may have formed these lines ata period 
antecedent to the formation of the lakes. The lakes, of course, could not be formed till the sea had 
sunk to a level below the highest shelf. 
VOL.XXVil, PART TV. SH 
