Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
(* Ibid. volume 4 page 63.)
In another excavation through the Scotch boulder clay, made in digging
the Clyde and Forth Junction Railway, the antlers of a reindeer were
found at Croftamie, in Dumbartonshire, in the basin of the river
Endrick, which flows into Loch Lomond. They had cut through 12 feet
of till with angular and rounded stones, some of large size, and then
through 6 feet of underlying clay, when they came upon the deer's horns,
18 feet from the surface, and within a foot of the sandstone on which
the till rested. At the distance of a few yards, and in the same
position, but a foot or two deeper, were observed marine shells, Cyprina
islandica, Astarte elliptica, A. compressa, Fusus antiquus, Littorina
littorea, and a Balanus. The height above the level of the sea was
between 100 and 103 feet. The reindeer's horn was seen by Professor
Owen, who considered it to be that of a young female of the large
variety, called by the Hudson's Bay trappers the caribou.
The remains of elephants, now in the museums of Glasgow and Edinburgh,
purporting to come from the superficial deposits of Scotland have been
referred to Elephas primigenius. In cases where tusks alone have been
found unaccompanied by molar teeth, such specific determinations may be
uncertain; but if any one specimen be correctly named, the occurrence
of the mammoth and reindeer in the Scotch boulder-clay, as both these
quadrupeds are known to have been contemporary with Man, favours the
idea which I have already expressed, that the close of the glacial
period in the Grampians may have coincided in time with the existence of
Man in those parts of Europe where the climate was less severe, as, for
example, in the basins of the Thames, Somme, and Seine, in which the
bones of many extinct mammalia are associated with flint implements of
the antique type.
PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY IN SCOTLAND.
[Illustration: Plate 2. Glen Roy and Glen Spean]
(PLATE 2. VIEW OF THE MOUTHS OF GLEN ROY AND GLEN SPEAN,
BY SIR T. DICK LAUDER.
VV. Hill of Bohuntine.
VVV. Glen Roy.
V(inverted)V. Mealderry.
V. Entrance of Glen Spean
VV(superscript)V. Point of division between Glens Roy
and Spean.)
Perhaps no portion of the superficial drift of Scotland can lay claim to
so modern an origin on the score of the freshness of its aspect, as that
which forms what are called the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy. If they do
not belong to the Recent epoch, they are at least posterior in date to
the present outline of mountain and glen, and to the time when every one
of the smaller burns ran in their present channels, though some of them
have since been slightly deepened. The almost perfect horizontality,
moreover, of the roads, one of which is continuous for about 20 miles
from east to west, and 12 miles from north to south, shows that since
the era of their formation no change has taken place in the relative
levels of different parts of the district.
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