Kev. J. Brodie on Level Terraces. 
343 
have been made on the banks of the Clyde still more de- 
cidedly confirm this conclusion. In some excavations in 
the neighbourhood of Glasgow the workmen came on a 
number of ancient vessels, generally made out of a single 
tree. They were found at different depths, and when first 
exposed were quite entire. They had evidently owed their 
preservation to their having been sunk completely under 
the water. If they had not been protected from the weather 
by the sediment in which they were embedded, they would 
very speedily have rotted away, and left no trace behind. 
We therefore conclude that the carse lands of Scotland 
must be regarded as bottoms of the estuaries of a former 
time, raised, we may presume, some feet above the present 
high-water mark. In that position they have been sub- 
jected to the horizontalising effects of the high-water 
billows. The upper parts have thus received that level 
surface which they now exhibit. The lower portions are 
the deposits of more ancient times. The plains of sand, or 
sandy soil, which we term links, are found on the shores of 
the open sea. Wherever debris has been thrown up by the 
tide, and land has been gained from the sea, the ground 
thus formed has exactly that elevation above the level of 
the ocean which we would expect to result from the action 
of the advancing billow. Where the beach is open, the 
level surface is from 5 to 15 feet above ordinary high- water 
mark, the height varying according to the force of the 
wave. In general they are covered by a quantity of drifted 
sand; theix surface is consequently irregular; but after allow- 
ing for the irregularities thus produced, their elevation is 
exactly such as we might have expected to find in a high- 
water terrace produced by the action of the sea at its pre- 
sent level. We do not find in these links any evidence of 
an elevation of the land by internal forces ; but that eleva- 
tion, proved by the discoveries to which we before referred 
to have occurred, must have tended very largely to increase 
their extent. The other range of terraces, which are usually 
described as from 20 to 30 feet above those to which we 
have been referring, are comparatively of small extent, 
which suggests the idea of a shorter time having been occu- 
