250 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [suss. 
catastrophe in the Forth, i.e. when the Carse lands were still 
submerged — for it is not admissible to suppose that the date 
of elevation was different in the two localities. The fact of 
the matter is, that neither the whale skeletons nor horn implements 
have any bearing on the date of the raised beach, beyond proving 
that primitive races inhabited the Forth valley when the school 
of whales were stranded in the shallow sea which then occupied 
its upper reaches. Had the horn axe-head been made of iron 
or had worked objects of undoubted Roman origin been found 
along with any of the cetaceous remains, the date of upheaval 
would unquestionably have been brought down to post-Roman 
times. 
The evidential materials of the Forth valley, by which the 
upheaval is brought within the domain of positive chronology, 
are thus set forth : — 
“In the elevated alluvial plains of the Forth, canoes similar to 
some of those of the Clyde have also been found. One was dug up 
on the Carse, not far from Falkirk, from a depth of 30 feet. Early 
in the last century, too, a flood in the river Carron, which flows through 
the Carse, undermined a part of the alluvial plain, and laid bare what 
was pronounced at the time to be an antediluvian boat. It lay 15 feet 
below the surface, and was covered over with layers of clay, moss, 
shells, sand and gravel. Its dimensions were greater than those of any 
other canoe yet found in Scotland, for it reached a length of 36 feet 
with a breadth of 4 feet. 1 It was described by a contemporary news- 
paper as finely polished and perfectly smooth, both inside and outside, 
formed from a single oak-tree, with the usual pointed stem and square 
stern.’ 
“ These features,” he goes on to say, “ seem to harmonise well with 
those of the more perfect of the Clyde canoes, and to justify the inference 
that they were produced by the employment, not of stone, but of metal 
tools. 
“ But on the Carse of the Forth an implement of metal has actually 
been found, and one formed not of bronze, but of iron. It was an iron 
anchor, dug up a little to the south-east of the place from whence the 
Dunmore whale was obtained. The exact depth at which it lay is not 
given ; it was probably about 20 feet above high-water. . . . Pieces 
of broken anchors have also been found below Larbert Bridge, near 
Camelon. 
“ Putting together, therefore, the archaeological evidence to be gathered 
from the contents of the elevated silt of the Forth, the inference, I think, 
can hardly be avoided that not only was the upheaval effected subsequent 
to the first human immigration, but that it did not take place until the 
natives along the banks of the Forth had learned to work in metals, and 
