On the Rise of the Shores of the Firth of Forth, 283 



upon the whole, we cannot come to an exact conclusion as 

 regards the time. We see, however, that 600 acres have 

 been gained by the recedence of the sea, that the sea is 

 receding now, and if the laws of nature are unchangeable, 

 will continue to recede until some cause puts an end to it, 

 the reverse of that which caused its beginning. 



Now, this simple appeal to facts is worth all the fanciful 

 supposition of local upheavals insisted on by Sir Charles 

 Lyell, Geikie, and others.* 



Mr Geikie, in his paper " On a Eise of the Coast of the 

 Forth within the Historical Period" (Edin. New Phil. Jour. 

 vol. xiv. p. 102), has illustrated his communication by a sec- 

 tion of a sand-pit, Junction Road, Leith. He states that in 

 bed marked No. 5 in his diagram, which he calls a regularly 

 stratified deposit of marine silt, he found fragments of Roman 

 pottery, and that the strata with which this bed of silt 

 is connected lie 25 feet above high-water mark, and 

 are unequivocally those of the raised beach. He therefore 

 infers that a rise in the land to this extent has taken place 

 since the time of the Romans. 



In a communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 p On Hasty Generalisation in Geology," published in the 

 Edin. New Phil Jour. vol. xvi. p. 266, and in a subsequent 

 paper to this Society, " On the Danger of Hasty Gene- 

 ralisation in Geology, with special reference to the so- 

 called Raised Sea-Beach at Leith," published in the second 

 volume of our Proceedings, p. 430, I have shown that the 

 result of careful investigations made in this sand-pit, along 

 with my friend Dr M/Bain, convinced us, that there was no 

 proof of any rise of the shore at Leith within the historical 

 period, and for the following reasons, which I shall briefly 

 recapitulate : — First, as to bed No. 5, in which the so-called 



* " On a Rise of the Coast of the Forth within the Historical Period." — 

 Edin. New Phil. Jour. vol. xiv. p. 102. 



Smith of Jordanhill's paper on raised beaches is published in the " Edin- 

 burgh New Philosophical Journal," vol. xxv. p. 385, and in the " Memoirs of 

 the Wernerian Society," vol. viii. Part I. ; also in " Memoirs of the Wernerian 

 Society," vol. viii. p. 58. 



Robert Chambers's paper, " Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," vol. xlix. 

 p. 233. 



vol. nr. 2 o 



