(* Geikie, "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society"
volume 18 1862, page 222.)
At the time when the ancient vessels, above described, were navigating the waters where the city of Glasgow now stands, the whole of the low lands which bordered the present estuary of the Clyde formed the bed of a shallow sea. The emergence appears to have taken place gradually and by intermittent movements, for Mr. Buchanan describes several narrow terraces one above the other on the site of the city itself, with steep intervening slopes composed of the laminated estuary formation. Each terrace and steep slope probably mark pauses in the process of upheaval, during which low cliffs were formed, with beaches at their base. Five of the canoes were found within the precincts of the city at different heights on or near such terraces.
As to the date of the upheaval, the greater part of it cannot be assigned to the stone period, but must have taken place after tools of metal had come into use.
Until lately, when attempts were made to estimate the probable antiquity of such changes of level, it was confidently assumed, as a safe starting-point, that no alteration had occurred in the relative level of land and sea, in the central district of Scotland, since the construction of the Roman or Pictish wall (the "Wall of Antonine"), which reached from the Firth of Forth to that of the Clyde. The two extremities, it was said, of this ancient structure, bear such a relation to the present level of the two estuaries, that neither subsidence nor elevation of the land could have occurred for seventeen centuries at least.
But Mr. Geikie has lately shown that a depression of 25 feet on the Forth would not lay the eastern extremity of the Roman wall at Carriden under water, and he was therefore desirous of knowing whether the western end of the same would be submerged by a similar amount of subsidence. It has always been acknowledged that the wall terminated upon an eminence called the Chapel Hill, near the village of West Kilpatrick, on the Clyde. The foot of this hill, Mr. Geikie estimates to be about 25 or 27 feet above high-water mark, so that a subsidence of 25 feet could not lay it under water. Antiquaries have sometimes wondered that the Romans did not carry the wall farther west than this Chapel Hill; but Mr. Geikie now suggests, in explanation, that all the low land at present intervening between that point and the mouth of the Clyde, was sixteen or seventeen centuries ago, washed by the tides at high water.
The wall of Antonine, therefore, yields no evidence in favour of the land having remained stationary since the time of the Romans, but on the contrary, appears to indicate that since its erection the land has actually risen. Recent explorations by Mr. Geikie and Dr. Young, of the sites of the old Roman harbours along the southern margin of the Firth of Forth, lead to similar inferences. In the first place, it has long been known that there is a raised beach containing marine shells of living littoral species, at a height of about 25 feet, at Leith, as well as at other places along the coast above and below Edinburgh. Inveresk, a few miles below that city, is the site of an ancient Roman port, and if we suppose the sea at high water to have washed the foot of the heights on which the town stood, the tide would have ascended far up the valley of the Esk, and would have made the mouth of that river a safe and commodious harbour; whereas, had it been a shoaling estuary, as at present, it is difficult to see how the Romans should have made choice of it as a port.
At Cramond, at the mouth of the river Almond, above Edinburgh, was Alaterva, the chief Roman harbour on the southern coast of the Forth, where numerous coins, urns, sculptured stones and the remnant of a harbour have been detected. The old Roman quays built along what must then have been the sea margin, have been found on what is now dry land, and although some silt carried down in suspension by the waters of the Forth may account for a part of the gain of low land, we yet require an upward movement of about 20 feet to explain the growth of the dreary expanse of mud now stretching along the shore and extending outwards, where it attains its greatest breadth, well-nigh two miles, across which vessels, even of light burden, can now only venture at full tide. Had these shoals existed eighteen centuries ago, they would have prevented the Romans from selecting this as their chief port; whereas, if the land were now to sink 20 feet, Cramond would unquestionably be the best natural harbour along the whole of the south side of the Forth.*
(* Geikie, "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal" for July
1861.)
Corresponding in level with the raised beach at Leith, above mentioned (or about 25 feet above high-water mark), is the Carse of Stirling, a low tract of land consisting of loamy and peaty beds, in which several skeletons of whales of large size have been found. One of these was dug up at Airthrie,* near Stirling, about a mile from the river, and 7 miles from the sea.
(* Bald, "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal" 1 page 393 and
"Memoirs of the Wernerian Society" 3 page 327.)
Mr. Bald mentions that near it were found two pieces of stag's horn, artificially cut, through one of which a hole, about an inch in diameter, had been perforated. Another whale, 85 feet long, was found at Dunmore, a few miles below Stirling,* which, like that of Airthrie, lay about 20 feet above high-water mark.
(* "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal" 11 pages 220, 415.)
Three other skeletons of whales were found at Blair Drummond, between the years 1819 and 1824, 7 miles up the estuary above Stirling,* also at an elevation of between 20 and 30 feet above the sea. Near two of these whales, pointed instruments of deer's horn were found, one of which retained part of a wooden handle, probably preserved by having been enclosed in peat. This weapon is now in the museum at Edinburgh.
(* "Memoirs of the Wernerian Society" volume 5 page 440.)
The position of these fossil whales and bone implements, and still more of an iron anchor found in the Carse of Falkirk, below Stirling, shows that the upheaval by which the raised beach of Leith was laid dry extended far westward probably as far as the Clyde, where, as we have seen, marine strata containing buried canoes rise to a similar height above the sea.
The same upward movement which reached simultaneously east and west from sea to sea was also felt as far north as the estuary of the Tay. This may be inferred from the Celtic name of Inch being attached to many hillocks, which rise above the general level of the alluvial plains, implying that these eminences were once surrounded by water or marshy ground. At various localities also in the silt of the Carse of Gowrie iron implements have been found.
The raised beach, also containing a great number of marine shells of recent species, traced up to a height of 14 feet above the sea by Mr. W.J. Hamilton at Elie, on the southern coast of Fife, is doubtless another effect of the same extensive upheaval.*
(* "Proceedings of the Geological Society" volume 2 1833
page 280.)
A similar movement would also account for some changes which antiquaries have recorded much farther south, on the borders of the Solway Firth; though in this case, as in that of the estuary of the Forth, the conversion of sea into land has always been referred to the silting up of estuaries, and not to upheaval. Thus Horsley insists on the difficulty of explaining the position of certain Roman stations, on