242 R. Chambers, Esq., on Glacial Phenomena 



course a westerly direction. He, therefore, drew the infer- 

 ence that " the nucleus of this physical force, the common 

 centre from which their agents moved, was in the group of 

 mountains extending from Loch Goil northward to Locli 

 Laggan, dividing the springs of the Spean, the Leven, and the 

 Orchay, from those of the Spey, the Tay, the Earn, and the 

 Forth.'' At the same time, Mr Maclaren candidly admitted 

 that much remained to be done before adequate materials for 

 a satisfactory theory were collected. 



M. Charles Martins, in 1850, supported Mr -Maclaren in 

 his view of glaciers radiating out of the Highlands, and de- 

 scending on the plains, as sufficient to produce the phenomena 

 which are to be accounted for. 



It seems, nevertheless, that both Mr Maclaren and M. 

 Martins were aware of some features of the case which 

 such a theory could not well account for. Mr Maclaren had 

 himself discovered that the eminence between Loch Long 

 and the Gairloch, 600 feet high, was as perfectly smoothed 

 along the top, as was the bottom of either of the two valleys. 

 Another even more startling fact, was that of a summit of 

 the Pentlaitds, 1400 feet high, where Professor Fleming had 

 found stria? identical in direction with those in the plains 

 to the northward. Mr Maclaren had likewise observed in 

 the valley of Westwater, which runs north and south at the 

 western extremity of the Pentland range, nearDunsyre, and 

 which is 800 or 900 feet above the sea, that striae crossed 

 through it in a direction from west to east, thus persevering 

 in the normal direction of the district, in circumstances where, 

 if anywhere, a divergence was to be expected. That any 

 group of our Highland mountains, ranging as they do from 

 3000 to 3500 feet high, should have sent forth from their 

 valleys, ranging far below that elevation, for so it must have 

 been, a glacier which reached the area of Mid-Lothian, 

 seventy miles off, in such volume and depth as to envelope a 

 range of hills to the depth of 1400 feet, and in such unyield- 

 ing force as there to cross a minor valley, 800 or 900 feet 

 above the sea, without diverging in the least from its course, 

 was certainly to be scarce expected by any one who was con- 

 tent to confine his view to what we see done bv such ice- 



