296 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



passing that narrow strait, and seems to us sufficiently to 

 account for the translation of the oysters to the heights of 

 In vera von. All the conditions of the bed point to a convul- 

 sive movement. First, it is not by any means level, its 

 greatest height being towards the west at Inveravon, and 

 its lowest nearer Bo'ness ; and, second, the want of any marine 

 exuviae below the oysters seems to me most conclusive that 

 the bed was violently thrown up, not gradually raised. 

 Another point is the paucity of littoral shells ; for one 

 specimen of the Purpura lapillus, Littorina, or Buccinum, 

 we found 100 oyster shells. This is due simply to the effect 

 of the greater buoyancy of the flat oyster shells, as compared 

 to the denser Littorina. 



The whole of the course between Inveravon and the Forth 

 seems to tell, in plain language, the history of its origin, 

 and would be eloquent, indeed, to any honest student of 

 geology who earnestly desires truth, not fiction. It tells 

 merely of an immense amount of detritus brought down by 

 the rivers Forth, Teith, and Annan Water, during floods ; 

 and further, that an immense portion of this is due to the 

 removal from its original position, and b}' man's hands, of 

 Blair Drummond Moss. To these causes only we can attri- 

 bute the rise of the Carse of Falkirk and the entombing of 

 stranded whales, the bones of which have yielded for so 

 many years an argument for the rise of our shores by up- 

 heaval from below. To this cause also we attribute all the 

 silting up at Cramond. 



It is a very curious circumstance, that the advocates of this 

 theory of upheaval have never sought for any confirmation of 

 it among the many islands of the Forth. At the present time 

 a well-marked line indicates the height of the tides. There, 

 on every rock, the Patella may be found depressing with its 

 foot the solid rock, making, as it were, a nest for itself; 

 but you may search in vain for any Pattellse marks 25 

 feet above the sea-level on Inchkeith or Inchcolme. At 

 Joppa hundreds of the holes of the Pholas may be seen, with 

 the living inhabitant quietly reposing at low water in its 

 rocky home. But no advocate of the tbeory of the rise of 

 the shores of the Forth, has yet shown a hole of a Pholas with 



