The greatest submergence that overtook central and southern Scotland
in times posterior to the latest continental condition of Britain did
not exceed fifty feet, or thereabout; and the extreme limits reached by
the sea in the period that supervened between the close of the glacial
epoch and the "age of forests" was not more than one hundred feet. The
Outer Hebrides, however, were certainly not smaller in post-glacial
times than they are now, and we have no evidence to show that after the
"age of forests" had passed away the sea rose higher than a dozen feet
or so above its present level. Now there are only two ways in which all
this can be accounted for. Either the Hebrides remained stationary, or
stood at a level higher than now, while the central and southern parts
of Scotland were being submerged; or else there has been a very recent
depression within the Hebridean area, which has carried down below the
sea all traces of late glacial and post-glacial raised beaches. All we
know for certain is, that the only raised beaches in the Long Island
are met with in low maritime regions at only a few feet above the
present high-water mark. My own impression is that the whole district
has been submerged within comparatively recent times; for if the
present coast-line had endured since the close of the glacial period,
or even since the last continental condition of Britain, I should have
expected the sea to have done more than it has in the way of excavation
and erosion.
In a former article I have spoken of the sand-dunes and sandy flats
of the west coast of the Long Island. These receive their greatest
development in North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist. Along the whole
western margin of these islands stretch wide shoals and banks of
yellow sand and silt, and similar shoals and banks cover the bed of
the shallow sounds or channels. In the middle of the Sound of Harris
one may often touch the bottom with an oar, and even run one's boat
aground. It is the same in the Sound of Barra, while, as I have already
mentioned, one may walk at low-water from Benbecula into the adjacent
islands of North and South Uist. Where does all this sand come from?
Certainly not from the degradation of the islands by the sea, for the
sounds appear to be silting up, and the general appearance of the sandy
flats along the west coast indicates that the land is upon the whole
gaining rather than losing. I have no doubt at all that this sand and
silt are merely the old sub-glacial débris which the ice-sheet spread
over the low shelving plateau that extends west under the Atlantic to
the 100-fathoms line. That plateau must have been thickly covered with
till, and with heaps and sheets of gravel and sand and silt, and it is
these deposits, sifted and winnowed by the sea, which the tides and
waves sweep up along the Atlantic margin of the islands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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