256 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
during which iron implements have been in use, it does not appear 
very difficult to account for the loss and embedding of the Inch- 
michael boat-hook, without calling any greater geological forces 
into operation in the case.” 
Mr Chambers’ idea, that a flood might account for the stranding 
of the boat-hook, was opposed by Sir Archibald Geikie, on the 
ground that the effects of a storm would not adequately explain 
the geological phenomena. “We can hardly conceive,” he writes, 
“ the sea rising upwards of 28 feet above high-water mark, and 
flowing for more than a mile inland ; still less can we believe that, 
if it did so rise, it could deposit 8 feet of sediment over the 
surface of the Carse.” But, waiving the intervention of a flood, 
is there anything very improbable in the supposition that the pow , 
described by Mr Chambers as little above present sea-level, was 
formerly sufficiently deep, either by natural or artificial means, to 
admit of a boat being rowed to the spot? Before the days of 
railways, harbours, and piers, trading vessels were beached on 
convenient places for the purpose of loading or unloading their 
cargoes. But surely it is unnecessary to discuss the possible ways 
in which such a portable object as a small boat-hook might have 
got strayed. The suggestion that it was lost by a sporting sailor 
in a wild-boar hunt is as feasible an explanation as that it was 
dropt from a sailing-vessel while the Carse lands were still sub- 
merged. But whatever the true explanation may be, there can be 
no doubt that this boat-hook is a relic of post-Roman times, and 
probably much nearer the present day than the Roman period. 
Sir Archibald’s next and final argument in support of his thesis 
is the relative positions of the ends of the Wall of Antoninus to the 
high-water marks in the adjacent estuaries. It is thus presented 
to us : — 
“ Mr Smith of Jordan Hill was the first to assert that since the Antonine 
Wall was built (about a.d. 140) there could have been no change in the 
relative position of sea and land, inasmuch as the ends of the wall were 
evidently constructed with reference to the existing level (Mem. Wern. 
Soc ., viii. p. 58, and Edin. New Phil. Journal , vol. xxv., for 1838, p. 385). 
This statement has been the foundation of all the subsequent geological 
arguments as to the long period at which the British Isles have been 
stationary. If it be true, then we must allow that the upheaval, of which 
the evidence has been adduced in the present communication, is referable 
