The archæology and prehistoric annals of ScotlandWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
Scotland -- Antiquities
since its removal from the moss.[41]
Other relics, though belonging apparently to a later period, may be
noticed along with these. In the progress of improvements on the
Kincardine moss, the remains of a singular roadway were discovered,
after the peat moss had been removed to a depth of eight feet. Seventy
yards of the ancient viaduct were exposed to view, formed of trees
about twelve inches in diameter, having other trees of half this
thickness crossing them, and brushwood covering the whole. This road
crossed the moss of Kincardine northward, from a narrow part of the
Forth, towards a well-known line of Roman road which has been traced
from a ford on the river Teith to Camelon, on the Antonine wall.
This singular structure, though so unlike anything usually found
on the line of the legionary iters, has been assigned, with great
probability, to Roman workmanship, as it appears to be designed to
keep up a communication with the well-known station at Ardoch. But if
so, we have here evidence of the fact that in the second century of
our era the Kincardine moss was an unstable and boggy waste, which the
Roman engineer could only pass by abandoning his favourite and durable
causeway, for such a road as modern ingenuity has revived in the
backwood swamps of America.
Such are some of the ancient chronicles of Scotland garnered for us
in the eastern valley of the Forth. The banks of the Clyde have been
scarcely less liberal in their disclosures. In 1780, the first recorded
discovery of one of the primitive canoes of the Clyde was made by
workmen engaged in digging the foundation of Old St. Enoch's Church. It
was found at a depth of twenty-five feet from the surface, and within
it there lay a no less interesting and eloquent memorial of the simple
arts of the remote era when the navies of the Clyde were hewn out of
the oaks of the Caledonian forests. This is a beautifully-finished
stone celt, represented in the woodcut--doubtless one of the simple
implements of its owner, if not, indeed, one of the tools with which
such vessels were fashioned into shape; though it is undoubtedly more
adapted for war than for any peaceful art. It measures 5½ inches
in length, by 3⅗ inches in greatest breadth; and is apparently
formed of dark greenstone. It is now in the possession of Charles
Wilsone Brown, Esq., of Wemyss, Renfrewshire, having descended to him
from a maternal relative who chanced to be passing at the time of the
discovery, and secured the curious relic.[42] The excavations of the
following year brought a second canoe to light, at a higher level, and
still further removed from the modern river's bed. Close to the site of
Glasgow's ancient City Cross, and immediately adjoining what was once
the Tolbooth of the burgh--more memorable from the fancied associations
with which genius has endowed it, than for the stern realities of human
misery which were its true attributes--there stands a quaint, but not
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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