THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Notice of Ancient Moraines in the Parishes of Strachur and 

 Kilmun, Argyleshire. By Charles Maclaren, F.R.S.E. 



Glaciers exert a powerful action on the face of a district 

 which they have at any time occupied, and in this way traces 

 of their ancient existence may be discovered long after they 

 have disappeared. The most conspicuous of these traces are 

 of three kinds ; first, the striated, grooved, and dressed sur- 

 faces of the rocks over which the glaciers have moved; secondly, 

 the piles of gravel and sand which collect on their sides and 

 at their lower ends, and are called moraines ; and, thirdly, 

 the large blocks which they have transported to vast distances 

 from their original localities, which blocks, indeed, once con- 

 stituted part of the moraines, but are sometimes found unac- 

 companied by anything in the regular form of a moraine. 

 Traces of all these three descriptions are met with in many parts 

 of Scotland. Those now to be described are in Argyleshire. 



Moraines in Glensluan. 



Glensluan is situated about a mile southward from the vil- 

 lage of Strachur. It runs nearly south and north, and is 

 divided from Loch Fyne by a single ridge, a mile in breadth. 

 The glen is about two miles and a half in length, fully two- 

 thirds of a mile in width, and is inclosed on all sides by moun- 

 tains, from 800 to 2000 feet high, except on the north, where 



NEW SEKIES. — VOL. I. NO. II. — APRIL 1855. 



