41 
of Edinburgh, Session 1869-70. 
assume the cost of 80 millions of paper to be not far short of the 
cost of maintaining a gold currency of like amount, the scheme 
proposed would have this merit, that it would bring 80 millions of 
gold into the bank, of which 70 millions would be an ample reserve 
against 80 of paper — thus effecting a gain of Ten Millions. Mr 
Coventry showed, too, that bullion was seldom required to be sent 
abroad to any very great amount by the exchanges, and instanced 
the year 1864, when the trade of the country amounted to nearly 
500 millions, and the balance only to 4J millions, or a trifle more. 
2. On the old River Terraces of the Earn and Teith, viewed 
in connection with certain Geological Arguments for 
the Antiquity of Man. By the Rev. Thomas Brown, 
Edinburgh. 
The author described the circumstances which led him, in 1863, 
to begin the investigation of these terraces, and showed he had traced 
their course along the Earn from Loch Earn to where they meet 
the tide. He had also examined the valley of the Teith, and had 
found the same deposits from the head of Loch Lubnaig to near 
Stirling. There are three different levels on which the terraces 
lie at different heights above the river bed. The lowest consists of 
the present banks of the stream and haughs or meadows ; above 
this there is an intermediate terrace, which, in its turn, is sur- 
mounted by the highest. Owing to the effects of denudation, one 
or other of these levels is frequently interrupted or obstructed, but 
they are ever again found recurring, and the whole three present 
themselves so frequently as to show that this threefold terrace 
system is the true key to these valley deposits. It was shown that 
they were neither sea-beaches, as some geologists have held, nor 
lake-margins, as has been maintained by others, but must have 
been formed by the river itself, at some former age, when its 
floods had the power of rising to the requisite height. All the 
three terraces are found varying in height at different points 
according to the width of the valley, the strength of the current, 
and other circumstances. The lowest, which consists of the pre- 
sent banks, &c., varies from 3 to 10 feet, according to the locality ; 
the second, from 15 to 24; while the third is from 35 to 60, or 
VOL. VII. 
