1903 - 4 .] Date of Upheaval of liaised Beaches in Scotland . 251 
until vessels sailing oyer that broad estuary had come to be moored with 
anchors of iron” {Ibid., p. 216.) 
The non sequitur of the latter half of the above conclusion is too 
transparent to mislead any cautious reader, but yet, so as to leave 
no loophole for escape, we will consider seriatim the various items 
on which it is founded. 
(1) In the absence of precise details of the relative positions of 
the Carron and Falkirk canoes to present high-water level, and of 
the general circumstances in which they were found, it would be 
sheer folly to draw any inference as to whether they were swamped 
or abandoned before or after the upheaval. If depth or thickness 
of the superincumbent materials be a valid criterion of age, then 
both these canoes must have been far older than the whale 
skeletons, which lay only a few feet beneath the surface of the clay. 
Then again, the well-known shiftings of river and estuary detritus 
during floods are the effects of powerful natural agencies, which at 
one time unearths the works of antiquity, and at another buries 
those of modernity under fathoms of gravel and mud. 
(2) The story of the iron anchor said to have been discovered 
near the site of the Dunmore whale skeleton is thus recorded by 
Mr Keddoch in a letter to Professor Jameson {Edin. Phil. Jour., 
vol. xi. p. 416) : — 
“ Many years ago an iron anchor was dug up adittle to the south-east of 
it (the whale skeleton). The fleuks {sic) were much decayed, but the 
beam, which was of a rude square form with an iron ring, was tolerably 
perfect. It hung many years in the old tower near Dunmore, but was at 
length stolen. Dunmore Moss extends a great way to the south-west, and 
in it, at about 300 yards from the skirts of the wood, are found the roots 
of large oaks.” 
From this record we have no certainty that the writer had ever 
seen this anchor, or examined the conditions under which it had 
been found, so that he is merely repeating hearsay evidence. We 
are informed that the skeleton of the Dunmore whale was 200 
yards from the then bed of the Forth, so that “ a little to the south- 
east of it ” would be in the direction of the river ; but it would be 
useless to speculate on the precise distance. From the constant 
shifting of the windings of the Forth, there is nothing very 
improbable in the discovery of a small anchor belonging to a 
comparatively modern boat in this raised beach. Such anchors are 
