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COLE: PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN GLOY. 
The parallel roads of Glen Gloy are higher than the top-most 
of the three in Glen Roy, being- at a pretty uniform elevation of 
1,165ft. above sea-level, whereas, those in Glen Roy are 1,149, 1,068, 
857ft. respectively. They point directly for a col leading- to Glen 
Turret and Glen Roy, the height of which is given as 1,172ft. There 
can be no question whatever as to the principal facts. That the 
roads or terraces are the shore margins of a former loch, whose 
waters drained over the above-mentioned col to Loch Spey ; that 
the loch was subsequently emptied somewhat rapidly, and converted 
into a glen, with a river running in the opposite direction to Loch 
Lochy ; and that nothing has since affected the roads except subaerial 
denudation. 
There are, however, some particulars in which they seem to 
differ from the descriptions given of the roads in Glen Roy, and 
which I wish to place on record. Of the latter, Lyell writes : I. — 
" When we are upon them, we can scarcely recognise their 
" existence, so uneven is their surface, and so covered with boulders, 
"they merely differ from the side of the mountain by being some- 
"what less steep. And II. — "they have not been caused by 
denudation, but by deposition of detritus," and he quotes Darwin as 
affirming that the roads are " mere excrescences of the superficial 
" alluvial coating which rests upon the hill-side." 
Now in Glen Gloy, at the upper end for a couple of miles, the 
terrace on the west side is so level in many places that several carts 
could be driven abreast. In one place in particular, at a point where 
