It is not, however, necessary to go beyond our own country for evidence of the destructive action of water. We have had during the past few years very striking evidence in this respect, which need scarcely be referred to more particularly here, because it will be in the recollection of all our readers. Looking over the annals of the last half-century only, we find several cases in which the power of running water in carrying away heavy masses of matter has been strikingly shown. Consider, for instance, the effects of the flood in Aberdeenshire and the neighbouring counties, early in August, 1829. In the course of two days a great flood extended itself over “that part of the north-east of Scotland which would be cut off by two lines drawn from the head of Loch Rannoch, one towards Inverness and the other to Stonehaven.” The total length of various rivers in this region which were flooded amounted to between 500 and 600 miles. Their courses were marked everywhere by destroyed bridges, roads, buildings, and crops. Sir T. D. Lauder records “the destruction of thirty-eight bridges, and the entire obliteration of a great number of farms and hamlets. On the Nairn, a fragment of sandstone fourteen feet long by three feet wide and one foot thick, was carried about 200 yards down the river. Some new ravines were formed on the sides of mountains where no streams had previously flowed, and ancient river channels, which had never been filled from time immemorial, gave passage to a copious flood.” But perhaps the most remarkable effect of these inundations was the entire destruction of the bridge over the Dee at Ballater. It consisted of five arches, spanning a waterway of 260 feet. The bridge was built of granite, the pier, resting on rolled pieces of granite and gneiss. We read that the different parts of this bridge were swept away in succession by the flood, the whole mass of masonry disappearing in the bed of the river. Mr. Farquharson states that on his own premises the river Don forced a mass of 400 or 500 tons of stones, many of them of 200 or 300 pounds’ weight, up an inclined plane, rising six feet in eight or ten yards, and left them in a rectangular heap about three feet deep on a flat ground, the heap ending abruptly at its lower extremity.” At first sight this looks like an action the reverse of that levelling action which we have here attributed to water. But in reality it indicates the intense energy of this action; which drawing heavy masses down along with swiftly flowing water, communicates to them so great a momentum, that on encountering in their course a rising slope, they are carried up its face and there left by the retreating flood. The rising of these masses no more indicates an inherent uplifting power in running water, than the ascent of a gently rising slope by a mass which has rolled headlong down the steep side of a hill indicates an upward action exerted by the force of gravity.