The archæology and prehistoric annals of ScotlandWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
Scotland -- Antiquities
The Loch of Doon in Ayrshire, has at different periods furnished
similar relics of ancient naval art. The fall of its waters in 1832,
owing to an unusually protracted drought, permitted the recovery of two
of these in a perfect state, one of them measuring about twenty-three
feet in length, formed of a single oak tree, with the insertion of an
upright plank into a broad groove for the stern. Numerous other relics
of canoes were found to be imbedded in the same place; and the head
of an ancient battle axe, a rude oak club, with other remains, gave
further clue to the character of their builders.[34]
Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, has furnished similar canoes, accompanied
by other relics of various eras--a brass ladle or patera, with an
elegant handle terminating with a ram's head, probably Roman; and
a very fine brass cannon, marked J. R. S. (5?) an antiquity of
comparatively modern date.[35]
Five fathoms deep in the Carse of Falkirk, a complete boat was
discovered, not far from the town, and therefore remote from any
navigable water.[36] Sir John Clerk, well known as an enthusiastic
Scottish antiquary of last century, describes with great minuteness
another vessel found in the same locality, more remarkable from its
size and construction than any of those yet described, and which he
pronounces, from the series of superincumbent strata, to have been _an
antediluvian boat_! In the month of May 1726 a sudden rise of the river
Carron undermined a portion of its banks, and exposed to view the side
of this ancient boat lying imbedded in the alluvial soil, at a depth
of fifteen feet from the surface, and covered by successive strata
of clay, shells, moss, sand, and gravel. The proprietor immediately
ordered it to be dug out. It proved to be a canoe of primitive form,
but of larger dimensions than any other discovered to the north of
the Tweed. It measured thirty-six feet long by four feet in extreme
breadth, and is described in a contemporary newspaper as finely
polished and perfectly smooth both inside and outside, formed from a
single oak tree, with the usual pointed stem and square stern.[37]
Mingling with such indisputable traces of human art, are deposited the
memorials of many successive changes. Among older relics of the same
Carse, in the Edinburgh Museum, are the remains of a fossil elephant
found in excavating the Union Canal in 1821, at a depth of some twenty
feet in the alluvial soil, with the ivory in such perfect preservation
that it was purchased and cut up by a turner, and only rescued in
fragments from his lathe.[38]
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