On the Rise of the Shores of the Firth of Forth. 279 
access to the river, therefore the land has risen in post- 
Eoman times. 
How stand the facts. The Komans built a bridge over 
the Esk near Musselburgh, which now forms the centre of 
the present old bridge. That the triremes of the Eomans 
reached so far up no one has ever doubted who knows the 
history of this famous structure. It is a fact recorded in 
history, that at the battle of Pinkie, fought September 9, 
1547, Lord Graham, son of the Earl of Montrose, was killed 
along with many others on this bridge by the fire of the 
English fleet in the offing,— at present no boat capable of 
conveying a small cannon could approach within two miles 
of the position. It is very easy to say that these are proofs 
of the rise of the land in post-Eoman times, but Maclaren, 
Geikie, and Chambers have not even hinted at the cause ; 
they have left their readers to assume, and Sir Charles 
Lyell to hint, that a real difference between the levels of 
sea and land has taken place to the extent of 25 feet 
since the occupation of our shores by the Eoman legions. 
That no such abnormal action has taken place in the 
historic, or it may be in the human period, it will not be 
difficult to prove. For this purpose, I avail myself of an 
able paper communicated upwards of twenty years ago to 
the Geological Society of Edinburgh, by Mr Hay, land- 
surveyor, Musselburgh, and as I had the honour of being 
one of a committee to investigate his proofs, I have every 
faith in their accuracy. 
The delta of low alluvial land forming the town lands 
of Musselburgh, or the lower part of the parish of Inveresk, 
to the extent of about 600 imperial acres, can be shown to 
have been formed by deposits in the sea brought down by 
the river Esk, and that the whole of these lands were sea at 
no very distant period of time, excepting a few small pendi- 
cles that extend into the higher ground southward. The 
land comprehending the formation maj^ be considered as an 
irregular triangle, whose base extends from Eavensheugh 
Burn on the east to Magdalene Burn on the west — about 
two and a half miles, and whose perpendicular extends from 
the south end of Newbigging to the mouth of the river Esk, 
