262 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
lengthwise, being generally on the surface of the clay, but in the lowest 
and wettest parts they are sunk about 2 feet under the surface. 
“ This road lies across a piece of ground lower than the adjacent 
grounds, and its direction is from the Forth across the moss, where it is 
narrowest, towards a road, supposed to be Roman, that passes between 
the moss and the river Teith. The vestiges of this last road have been 
traced, from about four miles north-west of the Bridge of Drip, where 
formerly there was a ford across the river, south-east of Torwood and 
Larbert, to Camel on on the wall.” ( Ibid , 276.) 
The significance and bearing of this road on the upheaval 
question is concisely stated by Mr Milne Home as follows : — 
“ The tide now comes up to Craigforth, which is about half a mile 
below Drip, and with a fall of only 4 feet between the two points. If, 
therefore, the land was during the time of the Romans 25 feet lower 
than now, neither the Drip Ford nor any river could then have existed, 
for the whole country west of Stirling must have been covered by the 
sea, even at the lowest spring tides.” (Ibid., vol. xxvii. p. 49.) 
The finding of portions of similar roadways in Flanders Moss is 
noticed by several writers of the period. One such structure, 
described as having logs lying across each other like a raft, with 
a general direction from south-east to north-west, is supposed to 
have been a branch of the Roman way from Camelon. 
The general evidence, over and above tradition, which associates 
these roads with the incursion of the Romans into the valley, has, 
in my opinion, considerable weight, certainly more than can be 
expressed by the words “mere conjecture.” Historians are almost 
unanimously of the opinion that the march of the soldiers of 
Agricola to the estuary of the Tay was from Camelon, via Stirling, 
Dunblane, Ardoch, and Stratherne ; in which case the most con- 
venient place to cross the river Forth would be a few miles 
to the west of Stirling (as shown on the map in Gordon’s Itiner- 
arium Septentrionale), and just in line with the wooden causeway 
in the Kincardine Moss. In support of this view the following 
fact is worth mentioning. It will be recollected that the Rev. 
Mr Tait, in noticing the cutting marks on the felled trees found 
in the Kincardine Moss, describes the axe cuts as not exceeding 
2J inches in breadth. Now it is very significant that the only 
iron axe-head found in the Ardoch camp, during its recent ex- 
ploration by the Society of Antiquaries, measured 5f inches in 
