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 tlie bed point to a convul- 
sive movement. First, it is not by any means level, its 
greatest height being tov^ards 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 il^s original position, and by 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 Pattellee 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 w^ater in its 
rocky home. But no advocate of the theory of the rise of 
the shores of the Forth, has yet shown a hole of a Pholas with 
