the Coast of the Firth of Forth. 107 
we suppose that it had been completed by the fourteenth or 
fifteenth century, and that the land has remained stationary 
ever since, the rate of rise would then be no more than 2 feet 
in a hundred years—a rate geologically quite probable, 
and sufficiently slow to escape observation during the barba- 
rous middle ages. The absence of any record of a change of 
level could not therefore be used as a valid argument in this 
question. But the change has really not passed unobserved ; 
and I shall immediately refer to corroborative testimony from 
the researches of the archeologist. 
A more serious objection would be obtained if it could be 
shown, that, over the area which I assert has been gained 
from the sea since the time of the Romans, there have been 
found the undoubted remains of Roman buildings, which seem 
to have been erected at least above high-water mark. Such 
an objection, if clearly established, would indeed involve the 
subject in great difficulty. Weshould then have to weigh the 
evidence of the sand-pit against the testimony of the exhumed 
buildings. And yet, bearing in mind that the operations of 
nature are uniform and certain, and that those of man may 
be guided only by his own caprice, we should be compelled to 
decide in favour of the geological rather than the antiquarian 
evidence. But no such difficulty really exists. Since the 
examination of the sand-pit at Leith, I have visited all the 
localities along the shore where Roman remains are known to 
have existed, and I have found no authentic evidence that in 
any way militates against the recent elevation of the land, 
but, on the contrary, several facts that tend to confirm it. 
In thus testing the conclusions derived from the littoral 
deposits of Leith, by a reference to the actual position of Ro- 
man sites, Dr Young has examined with me the shore of the 
Forth from Inveresk to Cramond, and the line of the Roman 
Wall from Carriden to Falkirk. At Inveresk, where a Ro- 
man town existed, all the remains, so far as we could discover, 
were found on the ridge 60 or 70 feet above the present high- 
water mark. The site of Fisherrow must at that time have 
been a flat of sand and silt, exposed between tide-marks. 
We can attach no value to a vague tradition of the discovery 
of a “Roman bath” at that village. The sea at high-water 
