COLE: TAEALLEL EOADS OF GLEN GLOY. 
125 
a burn had caused a fine delta to be formed, there was level space 
enough, 35 yavds wide, to play a game of croquet on. Only in a 
few places was the surface uneven from the boulders, and the 
difference of slope from the side of the mountain was uniformly 
considerable. Next they were caused partly by denudation ; for in 
one very fine section, where the rocks were standing on their edg-es, 
exposed in the side of a large corrie, the tops of the beds had 
evidently been planed away, before the ordinary detritus had 
accumulated ; and therefore the terraces are not " mere excrescences." 
They are cut in the solid rock in some places at all events. 
Mr. Dakyns comes to this conclusion too ; for he says, " How then 
*' were the roads formed ? Obviously by the planing action of waves 
"acting on the rock and cutting the shore-line back." But then he 
goes on to say, " subsequently, on the lowering of the water-line, 
" the detritus of the mountain side falling, and being washed down 
*'hill by rain, etc., lodged on the platform of the shelves, and there 
"accumulating gradually formed a pile of loose material sloping 
" towards the valley, and slowly obliterating the true roads." 
Now, here, I do not quite agree with him, or rather, I should say, 
*he facts relating to the roads in Glen Gloy do not bear out the 
observations made in Glen Roy. In all probability the sides of the 
hills in Glen Gloy are not so steep, and have been more rapidly 
covered with vegetation than those in Glen Roy, and hence the roads 
have not suffered so much from detritus. They are more in their 
original condition. 
This being so, it is clearly a matter of interest to desci ibe what 
this condition is. 
The roads are shelves in the mountain sides, from 10 to 12 yards 
wide : in some cases, where a delta has been formed, from 30 to 40 
yards wide. They are nearly level, scarcely averaging' 1ft. in 20ft. 
in slope. They point directly for the col at the head of the glen. 
They are deeply furrowed by burns descending the mountain's side. 
These burns helped to form the roads when the loch was in existence. 
The steepest portion of the hillside is that immediately below the 
roads. The material brought down by the burns was arrested by 
the water, and was invariably, then, as now, carried to the eastward 
