102 Mr Geikie on a Rise of 
On a Rise of the Coast of the Firth of Forth within the 
Historical Period. By ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S.E., | 
F.GS. 
The existence of a series of littoral deposits above the pre- 
sent high-water mark, along the shores of the Firth of Forth, 
has long been familiar to the geologist. The upraised beds of 
sand and gravel, with shore shells, which occur at the Friggate 
Whins, between Leith and Portobello, have been described by 
Mr Maclaren, as well as other similar strata that fringe the 
coast westward as far as the mouth of the River Avon. At 
the Friggate Whins, which may be taken as.a kind of typical 
example, we are presented with a low bluff rising from high- 
water mark, and then sloping upwards at a scarcely perceptible 
angle to another and higher cliff, which varies in outline and 
in its distance from the shore. The first low escarpment con- 
sists of various well-bedded alternations of sand and gravel 
full of the ordinary littoral shells. The nearly level plain 
between this escarpment and the inner one represents the old 
beach, while the inner bluff marks the sinuous cliff line against 
which the waves broke previous to the last upheaval of the 
land. The base of the inland cliff is somewhere about twenty- 
five feet above the present sea-level; and the space between 
its base and high-water mark consists of strata of sand, gravel, 
and shells, exactly similar to those which are now forming at 
the base of the outer cliff between tide marks. The inference 
is therefore incontestable, that, within a comparatively recent 
geological period, the land here has risen twenty or twenty-five 
feet above the level of the sea. I propose in this paper to 
show that this elevation is not only one of the latest geological 
changes of this district, but that it has actually taken place 
since man appeared on the shores of the Forth. | 
In the course of some recent examinations of the alluvial 
deposits of the water-courses of Mid-Lothian, I had occasion 
to visit the lower reaches of the Water of Leith. In tracing 
the alluvial plain of that stream, I found that the raised beach 
just referred to fringes the banks of the river, as might have 
been anticipated, and that it extends southward beyond the 
