On the Bise of the Shores of the Firth of Forth. 287 



material and style characterise it as mediaeval." Now, this 

 fact is one of some value. The age of the building under 

 which the jar was found could not be earlier than 1544, as 

 during its removal were found portions of the cloister win- 

 dows of old South Leith Church, destroyed by the English 

 army under the Earl of Hertford in that year, and used, as 

 was too often the case, as a quarry for a new erection. Thus 

 we find that Mr Geikie's bed, No. 2, was used as a founda- 

 tion after 1544, when his Eoman bed, No. 5, was still in 

 nubibus, its sour-milk pipkins and tobacco pipes still but 

 clay, not yet having yielded to the hands of the potter, until 

 the year 1814. 



Leaving Leith we direct our steps and observation to- 

 wards the west, that is, up the river; and within three- 

 quarters of a mile from the old bridge of the port, we come 

 to what was wont to be called the Man-trap, half way be- 

 tween Leith and Newhaven. Here may be seen a fine section 

 of the boulder-clay, 20 feet in thickness, over which lies 

 shingle and sand, yet not a trace of the remains of even one 

 marine shell. How comes it, we ask the supporters of the 

 rise of the shores of the Forth, that these were omitted in 

 this deposit, and only a single fresh-water shell obtained by 

 a friend in our investigation of this most salient point, so 

 important either to prove, or to disprove, the theory of 

 which Sir Charles Lyell has become the advocate ? 



The next proof of the rise of the shores of the Firth of 

 Forth is Cramond ; it was occupied by the Komans as a 

 harbour, and called Alaterva. Of this station Mr Geikie 

 says : — " The coins, urns, sculptured stones, and other re- 

 mains which have been found so numerously at Cramond, 

 fully attest its ancient importance. The remnants of a 

 harbour has also been detected here. It is greatly to be 

 regretted, however, that in these, as in other instances of 

 archaeological discovery along the coast, no record appears 

 to have been kept of the exact spots on which the remains 

 were found. We only know that the quays which the 

 Eoman s built along the sea margin have been found on 

 what is now good dry land. No relic of the Eoman period 

 is now visible here. A rock, indeed, called the ' Eagle Eock, 



