cliffs are of sand-stone, belonging to a part of the Old Red Group, and the caves are due to the action of waves at one time beating against them.

Professor Ramsay, in his account of the Geology of Arran, says :"It will have been observed that an ancient sea-cliff overhangs the narrow plain intervening between the sea and the ascent of the hill to the north of Brodick. Between this cliff and the road, in what is now at many places ploughed fields, numerous recent shells, often in a perfect state of preservation, are mingled with the soil. The presence of these shells in such a locality, sufficiently indicates that what is now cultivated ground was formerly the sea-shore, which must, therefore, have been elevated to its present position above the tidal level, by subsequent upheaving agencies.”

I visited this place in the summer of 1849, and obtained from the sides of a ditch, in what was then a field waving with corn, many specimens of shells. They are broken and worn; but when it is remembered they were found at some distance from the sea, and at a much higher level than the sea ever reaches now, they are not without interest. From my note-book I copy the following account of my finding these shells — "I had looked for the evidences of the ancient beach, all along, but as yet had not picked up any shells. When we had passed Port-Na-Claoch, and were still a mile or so north of Markland Point, I asked an old man who was working on the road, whether he had seen any, as now, from the profuse vegetation, I could see none. He said he had often dug marl when he crofted a bit there,' and bade me look behind the first rock, which,' he said, 'keppet the shells when the tide gaed oot;'' for,' added he, 'the sea has been ower a' this, an' up at the rocks yonder, for the auld road gaed aboon there.' I did as he recommended, and in the first hollow, behind a mass of rock, at the edge of a corn-field, I found shells."

A little farther up the Frith are the islands of the Greater and Lesser Cumbraes the former well known from the favourite watering place of Millport, and the new Scotch Episcopalian College, situated on it. On the lesser Cumbrae, which is little more than a great rock, the same ancient beach is distinctly observable. On one end of this island, an old tower of extreme antiquity is built on the raised beach. Here, as in Arran, the beach is flat and narrow, very little raised above the present level of the sea, and immediately flanked by cliffs, rising abruptly from it. I have not landed on this beach, and do not know if it yields fossil evidence of its pristine character.

The Island of Bute presents us with the same physical conformation.

On entering the Bay of Rothesay, to the left, or south, you get a view almost equal to a section, the line of contour of the surface being presented against the sky and water, and representing a long slope from the hills to near the shore, when it descends abruptly to a flat space, not very broad, before reaching the water.

To the north of Rothesay, again, towards Port Bannatyne, the hills descend much more abruptly, but between their base and the water the little plain is more extended, and affords site for many bathing residences, and at one point it is occupied by a Roman Catholic Chapel. Advancing up the Clyde, the same beach is seen on both sides. All along, from Gourock southwards, the road is formed upon it. In some places it is a mere shelf, but in others it attains considerable breadth, and it is backed by most picturesque cavern-hollowed cliffs. These may be seen very distinctly in the neighbourhood of Wemyss Bay. On the north side of the Clyde, between Helensburgh and Dumbarton, the same sort of beach may be traced; and there, too, where the soft strata of the old red sand-stone stand out in cliffs, on the upper side of the road, they are hollowed out into water-formed caverns.

As you approach Glasgow, the high grounds on both sides of the river recede far inland, leaving spread out between them a rich alluvial plain, which it needs little imagination to recognise as the ancient bottom of some old sea inlet or inland lake; and it is curious to meet with names and notices carrying out this hypothesis. Thus, three or four miles below Glasgow, and a mile or a mile and a half north from the bank of the river, is a place called Garscadden. In Gaelic, I am informed, gar means a point, and scadden a herring; and Macfarlane, in his History of Renfrew, mentions this place as "The Herring Yair." There are also some notices in the statistical account of Renfrew of certain ancient fishings at Renfrew quay. In various parts of the flat grounds lying around that town, deposits containing shells of species not now living in our estuary have been found.

In and around Glasgow there are many indications of "terraces," with which, however, I do not think it needful to trouble you. They are carefully described by Mr. Robert Chambers in his "Ancient SeaMargins." In addition to the evidence of the terraces themselves, we have authentic records of the discovery of shells in the clay and sand of which many of them are composed. Thus, at various points in the parishes of Paisley and Renfrew have shells been found, especially at Oakshaw and Bella Houston. They have been found at a considerable depth in some of the brick-fields at Annfield, to the east of Glasgow, by Mr. John Craig, and by the same person in various other places, at 40,

80, 100, and 360 feet above the sea level. Shells were discovered in cutting the canal between Glasgow and Paisley, at a distance of about four miles from Glasgow. Twenty-two species were obtained, and a notice of them by Captain Laskey appears in an early volume of the Wernerian Transactions. A series of shells are in the Andersonian Museum of Glasgow, procured from Dalmuir, on the Clyde, and a notice of their discovery, by Mr. Thomas Thomson, was inserted in the first volume of Thomson's "General Records of Science." Similar deposits are also described as occurring on the shores of Loch Lomond, and more recently at Airdrie. These latter discoveries have been recorded in the Journals of the Geological Society, by Mr. Smith, of Jordan Hill, to whom we are indebted for several papers on this subject.

I shall now leave strict geology for a little antiquarianism, and supply you with some proofs of the former existence of the sea, or at least of a branch of it, at the spot now occupied by Glasgow, in notices of the discovery of several canoes, embedded in sand at various places on the Clyde.

Up to November 1850, eight of these had been discovered. They have been kindly described for me by Mr. Buchanan, of the Western Bank.

"The first was dug out of the foundations of the original church of St. Enoch, in 1780. It was lying flat, and filled with sand and shells. In the bottom there was sticking a celt or hatchet used by the aboriginal inhabitants. The boat was seen by the late John Wilsone, Esq., who secured possession of the celt; and it is now the property of his relative, Charles Wilsone Broun, Esq. It is in good preservation.

"The second was found about 1781, when digging the foundation of the Tontine. It is alluded to in Chapman's Picture of Glasgow,' 3rd ed., p. 152. It was embedded in sand and gravel.

"The third was found in 1825, when opening London-street. The position of this boat was vertical; the prow being uppermost, as if it had sank stern foremost. It was also filled with sand and shells. Pieces of it were broken off by the curious, but no effort was made to disinter the boat and it was covered up again.

"A fourth boat was found in Stockwell, a little above Jackson-street, while cutting the common sewer along the former, in 1825. Not much is known about this boat, but it is alluded to in the Gentlemen's Magazine' for 1825, vol. 95, part 2, p. 167.

"The other four were all found within a few yards of each other, in 1847-8, at Springfield, on the south side of Clyde, nearly opposite Mr.

Napier's dock. They were lying nearly seventeen feet below the surface, in the finely laminated sand.

"The first of this group is now in the Hall of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. The second, which is a remarkably fine specimen and nearly entire, is in Principal Macfarlane's garden, College, Glasgow. The third was much damaged by the work-people. It lay for some time in the court yard of the Clyde Trustees. One very curious fact may be remarked in connection with this boat. It had a plug of cork. Mr. Bremner, the Clyde River Engineer, drew it out himself, and gave it to me. There can be no doubt therefore of the identity. But where did the natives get cork, assuming that the deposition took place before the arrival of the Romans? I have had the question discussed in the Antiquarian Society, but without any satisfactory result. Spain being the nearest cork-growing country-and this boat belonging to the remote west side of the island-with many tribes intervening, in a state of constant hostility, there is a great difficulty in accounting for such a continental production as this cork plug being in possession of the rude Damnii, who inhabited this section of Scotland. The fourth Springfield canoe, is the smallest and seemingly the most primitive of the group. It is in the Museum of Anderson's University, Glasgow."

Shortly after a ninth canoe was exhumed. It is preserved in the Stirling Library, Glasgow. The discovery of two more was recorded in the "Northern Notes and Queries," in May, 1852, and in August of the same year three more were got, making fifteen in all. Two of those last discovered are by far the most interesting.

"The biggest is rather imposing." (I am quoting Mr. Buchanan again.) "From her considerable size, she was capable of containing a number of men, and, it is by no means improbable, was a war-canoe of the tribe. She is not at all crank, but broad and substantial; measuring fourteen feet in length, four feet one inch broad, and in depth one foot eleven inches. There are some curious details about this canoe worth recording. She is hollowed out of what must have been a most magnificent oak tree, an imposing specimen of the ancient monarchs of that primeval forest which then overshadowed all this part of the country. This gigantic tree has been very cleanly sawn through at the thickest place. Sharp tools must have been employed, for the interior is very smoothly cut, and the whole boat remarkably well executed. This canoe has a well shaped prow, not a mere cobble-like snout, as in other specimens; the stern has been cut open, and has the usual thin oaken board inserted in vertical grooves down the sides, and fixed in a horizontal one across the bottom, to keep it firm. This board remains quite

perfect; the only instance, except one, among all those discovered in this district. But from the considerable width of this great canoe at the stern, the natives had probably not been able to get a board sufficiently broad to fill up the opening. The savage who fashioned the boat has overcome this difficulty in a very ingenious manner. Two boards have been inserted, and, at the centre where they meet, a vertical incision has been made in each edge all the way down, so as to form a sheath in which a thin slip of oak about an inch and a-half broad has been neatly introduced, and made to draw out when necessary. In this way the seam in the stern, caused by the meeting of the two boards, and through which water would have percolated, has been made completely water tight by the vertical wooden tongue fitting closely over it. There has been a seat across the middle of the canoe, the ends of which rested on two small projections inside left for the purpose on the gunwale when scooping out the boat. The natives have rowed this large canoe, instead of merely paddling her; for two neat semi-circular knobs or elevations, each resembling a large horse shoe, with the concave facing the bow, have been left uncut on the floor at a convenient distance from the seat, for the rowers to rest their feet against, as a resistance to the pull of the oar. Towards the bow a large semi-circular aperture occurs in the bottom, which has been stopped by an oaken plug, as thick as a man's wrist and nearly a foot long. This plug was found sticking in the hole, and in order that it might not be lost it is perforated by a circular eye, to receive a thong for fastening it to the inside of the boat. It is not unlikely that this large aperture in the bottom was intended for the double purpose of running off, when on shore, the water shipped afloat, and of sinking the canoe when the savages wished to hide her, a practice quite common at the present day among the boatmen on the banks of the Nile. On both sides of this Clyde canoe, near the stern, are a number of well cut circular holes, irregularly placed, the use of which is not very obvious. A loose flat piece of wood about three feet long, also perforated by these circular holes and stopped with wooden plugs, was found inside the canoe, but its use is also doubtful. Altogether this is the finest specimen of the state of maritime art among our savage ancestors probably ever found in Scotland."

A local paper stated that in one of these canoes there were some remains of oakum. On this point, I requested particular information from Mr. Buchanan, and received from him the following interesting

note :

"I am quite satisfied that the Editor of the Citizen is mistaken in

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