Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
I described also one remarkable transverse mound, evidently the terminal
moraine of a retreating glacier, which crosses the valley of the South
Esk, a few miles above the point where it issues from the Grampians, and
about 6 miles below the Kirktown of Clova. Its central part, at a place
called Glenarm, is 800 feet above the level of the sea. The valley is
about half a mile broad, and is bounded by steep and lofty mountains,
but immediately above the transverse barrier it expands into a wide
alluvial plain, several miles broad, which has evidently once been a
lake. The barrier itself, about 150 feet high, consists in its lower
part of till with boulders, 50 feet thick, precisely resembling the
moraine of a Swiss glacier, above which there is a mass of stratified
sand, varying in thickness from 50 to 100 feet, which has the appearance
of consisting of the materials of the moraine rearranged in a stratified
form, possibly by the waters of a glacier lake. The structure of the
barrier has been laid open by the Esk, which has cut through it a deep
passage about 400 yards wide.
I have also given an account of another striking feature in the physical
geography of Perthshire and Forfarshire, which I consider to belong
to the same period; namely, a continuous zone of boulder clay, forming
ridges and mounds from 50 to 70 feet high (the upper part of the mounds
usually stratified), enclosing numerous lakes, some of them several
miles long, and many ponds and swamps filled with shell-marl and peat.
This band of till, with Grampian boulders and associated river-gravel,
may be traced continuously for a distance of 34 miles, with a width of
3 1/2 miles, from near Dunkeld, by Coupar, to the south of Blairgowrie,
then through the lowest part of Strathmore, and afterwards in a straight
line through the greatest depression in the Sidlaw Hills, from Forfar to
Lunan Bay.
Although no great river now takes its course through this line of
ancient lakes, moraines, and river gravel, yet it evidently marks
an ancient line by which, first, a great glacier descended from the
mountains to the sea, and by which, secondly, at a later period, the
principal water drainage of this country was effected. The subsequent
modification in geography is comparable in amount to that which has
taken place since the higher level gravels of the valley of the Somme
were formed, or since the Belgian caves were filled with mud and
bone-breccia.
[Illustration: Figure 35. Oval And Flattish Pebbles In Deserted Channels]
(FIGURE 35. OVAL AND FLATTISH PEBBLES IN DESERTED CHANNELS.)
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