answer must plainly be sought for in the character of the works of art found in the ancient beach. If they are all of an extremely rude construction, then the date of the upheaval must be assigned to a very early archæological period. If, on the other hand, they show evidence of great me green surface skirts the base of the somber | is the change to be assigned? The mountains that rise steeply from the sea along the shores of Inverness and Argyle; it borders both sides of the Firth of Clyde, runs up the sea-lochs, and fringes the isl ands. In short, it may be regarded as present everywhere, save in such parts of the coast-line as are rocky and precipitous, or where the encroaching waves have sub-chanical skill, and especially of the use of sequently swept it away. This great terrace cannot be accounted for in any other way than by admitting that it was formed by the action of the sea, and that, since its formation, there has been a rise of the land to a hight of from twenty to thirty feet above the level which it previously occupied. This upheaval was, of course, brought about by the operation of those igneous forces that are lodged within the earth, but whose origin and mode of action still remain such a mystery. It was by no means an abnormal movement; it can be paralleled in several parts of the surface of the globe by movements that are going on now. Thus, the coast of Sweden, as every one knows, is at this moment slowly rising above the level of the North Sea on the one side, and of the Baltic and Gulf of Finland on the other. The island of Santa Maria, off the coast of Chili, during the great earthquake of twentieth February, 1835, actually rose eight to ten feet in a few hours. There is therefore no difficulty in conceiving that a part, if not the whole of Scotland, might have been upheaved above the sea to a hight of eight or ten yards. Nor, if we consider the slow and almost imperceptible rate at which the upward movement progresses in Scandinavia, is there reason to doubt that the upheaval in Scotland might have gone on so slowly as to escape the observation of a barbarous people, who had no harbors or maritime works by which to measure such a change. In the deposits of this elevated seabeach, relics of man have been found on both sides of the island. From the alluvial silt of the Clyde no fewer than eighteen canoes have been disinterred, some of them fully twenty-two feet above highwater mark. From the similar silt of the Forth, two deer-horn harpoons, a canoe, and some other implements, have also been obtained. So far, therefore, there can be no doubt that the elevation is later than the first coming of man into the island. But the question remains, To what part of the human occupation of the country metal, the time of the upheaval can not but be regarded as long subsequent to the beginning of the human period in this country. It would expand this article far beyond its proper limits to enter into the details of this deeply interesting subject. Referring to the works cited above, it may be enough at present to remark that, among the Glasgow canoes, there is shown such an amount of ingenuity, so much excellence of workmanship, and so great an acquaintance with the resources of carpentry, as to remove them at once from the more remote and barbarous period. The more perfect canoes were certainly formed with metal tools; indeed, in some instances, the marks of the heads of the metal nails were still observable on the oak planks. A piece of plate-lead, also showing the impressions of square nail-heads, occurred in one of the canoes. Clearly such vessels can not be assigned to the Stone Period of the antiquary. One of them, indeed, of somewhat complex workmanship, bore so strong a resemblance to an antique galley as to lead to the inference that its builder had taken his model from the ships of some more civilized people. Again, in the Carse of Falkirk, among the elevated deposits of the Forth, an iron anchor has been found, along with fragments of other iron nautical implements. In the Carse of Gowrie, that borders the north side of the Tay, various works of art have been exhumed, such as an iron boat-hook, and two or three anchors, from a hight of between twenty-five and thirty feet above high-water mark. That district, moreover, abounds in traditions of the sea having once covered the Carse; and these traditions certainly go back to a time when the country was inhabited by a Celtic population. The inference to be deduced from such achæological evidence is, that the last elevation of the great central valley of Scotland has been effected not only since man came into the country, but actually since the introduction of iron, and since a Celtic people settled on the shores of the Tay. In entire harmony with this conclusion is the recent discovery of Roman pottery in a part of the raised beach of the Forth at Leith, as well as the fact that the Roman harbors along the estuary of the Forth are now unfit for navigation, being, in one instance, several miles from the sea. Further, the change which has been effected in the aspect of the coast-line within the last eighteen centuries has not escaped the notice of some of the best antiquaries who have studied the Roman antiquities of Scotland. Horsley, Roy, and Stuart give their unequivocal testimony to the fact, that the sea-margin can not be at this day in the same state in which it was in the days of the Caesars. They do not attempt to explain how the change has been brought about, contenting themselves with a statement that "the land seems to have gained." But it could only have gained its marginal terrace by an actual upheaval above the sea; and thus the conclusion appears irresistible, that at least the central valley of Scotland, from the Clyde to the Tay and Forth, has risen from twenty to thirty feet since the Romans landed in the country. Of this rise there are no historical records. Nor, indeed, can we well expect to find them. During those centuries of war and rapine which followed the first Roman invasion, and lasted till a comparatively recent period, men were too much engaged in fighting and plundering their neighbors to note the gradual, and probably scarce perceptible, change which was coming over the contour of their coasts. And when at last, in the seclusion of abbeys and monasteries, men were found with leisure and ability to commit the history of their country to writing, the uprise of the land had in all likelihood ceased. But whether or not it was still in progress, the monkish chroniclers found much more pleasant theme in the voyages and miracles of saints, and the adventures of heroes, than in the growth of muddy flats and swamps along the coast. The proof of a recent upheaval thus rests entirely upon geological evidence, which is, of course, more trustworthy than the testimony even of a Bede or a Wyntoun. Yet, though no historical record of such a slow movement now exists, there are not a few allusions to subterranean movements of another kind which from time to time have affected the area of the British Isles. The land, indeed, appears to be now sta tionary; but the forces which raised it above its old level are still in existence below, and in the course of the last few centuries have frequently manifested their power by symptoms which, on not a few occasions, have filled the inhabitants with terror. Britain is happily free from those widespread convulsions of the earth's crust that prostrate cities to the ground, or engulf them in yawning chasms. But though no great catastrophe from such causes remains on record since man first colonized the island, the earthquake has been far from unknown. In Scotland, upward of three hundred and fifty perceptible tremors of the ground are known to have occurred between the beginning of the seventeenth century and the year 1844, while subsequent years have increased the number. Most of these were of a mild and harmless kind, doing little more than communicating a slight vibration to the surface of the ground. Others shook tables and chairs, pictures, glasses, and other loose objects within dwelling-houses; while there were some which actually rent stone walls, sent masses of masonry to the earth, split open the soil, and loosened rocks and earth from the sides of hills and rivers. It is interesting to note the circumstances of these phenomena, and especially the point of view from which the events were regarded by the people at the time of their occurrence. Thus, on the twenty-third of July, 1597, we are told by Calderwood, that "between eight and nine in the morning there was an earthquake, which made all the north parts of Scotland to tremble; Kintaill, Rosse, Cromartie, Marr, Braidalban, etc. A man in St. Johnstoun [Perth] laying compts with his compters, the compters lappe off the boord, the man's thighes trembled; one leg went up and another doun." Another shock, of apparently a still more perceptible kind, occurred on the eighth of November, 1608. It was felt over the greater part of Scotland, and Calderwood relates that at Dumbarton it was so alarming that the people ran to the church "to cry to God, for they looked presently for destruction." It shook many stones from the east end of the Tolbooth of Perth. At Aberdeen it excited such alarm, that it was regarded as a document that God is angry against the land, and against this city in particular, for the manifold sins of the people." From time immemorial it had been cus tomary to carry on the salmon-fishing in the Dee on Sundays, and the kirk-session set this down as the proximate cause of the earthquake. The proprietors of the fishings were accordingly summoned and rebuked. "Some promist absolutely to forbear, both by himselfs and their servands, in time coming; other promised to forbear upon the condition subscryvant, and some plainly refusit anyway to forbear." periods of rest followed by periods of greater or less disturbance, so the present aspect of the island may in the centuries to come undergo many modifications, according as the subterranean forces elevate or depress the land, or convulse it with earthquakes. If now, from the subterranean agencies of change, we pass to the consideration of those which do their work on the surface of the earth, we shall find that the results effected by the latter reach a magnitude which, at first sight, seems incredible. It requires no stretch of im forces may heave up an entire continent, or sink it beneath the sea; but it does demand some effort to bring the mind to admit that continents may, in process of time, be entirely worn away by the combined agency of rains, springs, ice, rivers, and the sea. Yet we can not look back upon the last few hundred years of the history of this island without learning enough to convince us that these agents are quite adequate to the task, provided only they be allowed time enough for their operations. The earthquakes which have been recorded in Scotland ought, if we mistake not, to be assigned to two classes. In the first place, there are the fainter pulsations co-agination to believe that the internal incident with violent disturbances in other and distant parts of the earth's surface. These may be compared to the swell that often breaks upon even a sheltered shore during a perfect calm, indicating some storm that has spent its fury in midocean, and now propagates its waves in long undulations into districts far removed from the scene of the gale. In the second place, there are the tremors and shocks of a more decided, though still of a comparatively feeble character, which do not appear to come from a distance, but rather to emanate from some point Of all the agents of change that have or points beneath this country or its im- modified the surface of the land, none armediate neighborhood. If one reads at- rest the attention more than the waves tentively the narratives that exist of some of the sea. One can not witness the efof the Scottish earthquakes, more espe- fects of a storm on an exposed coast withcially of those which have been observed out being impressed by the enormous within the last quarter of a century, one amount of tear and wear which is there can hardly help coming to the conclusion visible. But it is not merely by storms that most of these disturbances are refer- that this waste is carried on. It proable to the second class; in other words, gresses silently and slowly from day to that they are indigenous to the coun- day; the sea encroaching foot by foot on try. But whether the earthquakes have the land, and grinding into sand the fragcome from a distance, or have been pro- ments which it breaks from the rocks of duced by subterranean movements origin- the shore. It would be interesting if we ating more or less directly under the area could trace the gradual retreat of the of Britain, their geological effects in Scot-coast-line, which has thus been effected durland have been of trifling consequence. With the exception of the occasional loosening of masses of stone and earth from the sides of hills or river-banks, and the production of small fissures in the ground, they do not seem to have effected, at least within the historical period, any alteration of the surface of the country. Yet their occurrence is a fact of the highest importance in the geological history of the island. It shows us that the internal agencies which have in past ages so often shattered and changed the framework of our country are not extinct; and that just as in the past there were long ing the last two thousand years round the sea-board of Scotland, or even if we could determine its amount and successive stages at any one point during the lapse of that long period. No written records of such changes, however, go further back than, at the most, three or four hundred years. There are, indeed, traditions of land having once existed where for many a century have rolled the waves of the salt sea, just as in Cornwall there still survives the memory of a district called the Lyonnesse, now covered by the Atlantic ; but which, in the days of the Knights of the Round Table, is said to have been and that it is still in progress; but there does not appear to be any record to show how much of it has been produced within the times of human history. Passing onward, therefore, along this coast-line, with its green bays and dark, gloomy cliffs, we round the headland of St. Abb's, and observe that it stands there, at once a bulwark against the waves and a mark of their advance; for, being a mass of hard porphyry, it has been able in some measure to withstand the assaults of the ocean, which has worn away the greywacke and shales around. Sweeping across the bay of Dunglass, we soon come in sight of the Castle of Dunbar, at the entrance into the Firth of Forth. Here the proofs of the onward march of the sea come before us with a melancholy reality. The old castle, once so formidable a stronghold, is almost gone rich and fertile. But such traditions are too vague to be, at least in the mean time, of any geological service. It is with the time of written history, therefore, that we have to deal-in short, with the changes that have taken place along the coast-line within the last few hundred years. The period during which observations have been recorded is thus but of short duration, yet it furnishes us with some instructive lessons as to the progress of marine erosion, and enables us in some measure to see how the decay of the coast-line has gone on in past time. Instead of attempting to follow a chronological order, in the narrative of these changes, it will be more useful to trace the sea-margin round the island, and note, as we proceed, the changes which it is known to have undergone. Let the reader, then, imagine himself coasting north--two tall fragments of wall, and some ward, along the east side of Scotland, and, while the breeze drives us merrily onward, it may be a pleasant amusement to listen to some jottings of the wild havoc that has been wrought on the shores by the same sea whose waves are now leaping and laughing around us. We set sail from the mouth of the Tweed, and skirt the abrupt, rocky coast which forms the eastern boundary of Berwickshire. The cliffs, for many miles, are vertical, rising sometimes to a hight of more than three hundred feet above the sea, and here and there interrupted by narrow bays and coves, which have in several instances been selected as the sites of fishing villages and hamlets. We see, from the wasted and worn look of these cliffs, what a sore battle they have have to fight with the ocean. Craggy rocks, isolated stacks, and sunken skerries, that once formed part of the line of cliff, are now enveloped by the restless waves. Long twilight caves, haunted by otters and seamews, and flocks of rock-pigeons, have been hollowed out of the flinty rock, and are daily filled by the tides; and then in storms the whole of these vast precipices, from base to summit, is buried in foamthe pebbles and boulders, even on the sheltered beaches, are rolled back by the recoil of the breakers, and hurled forward again with all the force and noise of heavy artillery. But a line of abrupt rock presents such formidable obstacles to the advance of the sea, that the rate of waste is extremely slow. We see everywhere, indeed, the loss of land has been prodigious, minor pieces of masonry at a lower level, being all that is left. It is not merely that the rains and frosts of many a dreary winter have broken down the ramparts; nor even that the hand of man, more wanton and unmerciful in its destruction than the hand of time, has quarried away the stones, and blasted the rocks in the excavation of the harbor. The sea has been ceaselessly at work wearing away the islets and undermining the cliff on which the ruin is perched. Dunbar Castle, indeed, as it stands to-day, seems to belie all that history relates as to its importance in former times. Its very site appears too narrow and limited to accommodate a body of men large enough to have been of service in a campaign. But, in truth, we do not see the site as it existed when Bothwell lodged poor Mary within the walls of the fortalice, or when Black Agnes joked over its battlements to the baffled Earl of Salisbury. Part of the headland has been removed, and sunken reefs and rocks, marking its place, have been left standing in the sea. The time will come, at no very distant period, when the Dun, or hill, from which the castle takes its name, will be swept away, and its site be marked only by a chain of rocky islets. It might have been supposed that the comparatively sheltered estuary of the Forth would be free from any marked abrasion by the sea. Yet, even as far up as Granton, near Edinburgh, during a fierce gale from the north-east, stones weighing a ton and a half or more, have been known to be knocked about like pebbles. Hence, along the whole coast of the Firth, even as far up as Stirling, the sea has made encroachments, sometimes to a considerable extent, within the last few generations. Tracing the southern shores in a westerly direction from Dunbar, we find that the low sandy tracts at the mouth of the Tyne, and again from North-Berwick to Aberlady, have suffered loss in several places. Further on, near Musselburgh, there was a tract of links on which the Dukes of Albany and York used to play at golf in former days, but which is now almost entirely swept away. The coast of Edinburghshire has, in like manner, lost many acres of land. Maitland, for instance, in his History of Edinburgh, describes the ravages of the sea between Musselburgh and Leith, which had occasioned the "public road to be removed further into the country; and the land, being now violently assaulted by the sea on the eastern and northern sides, all must give way to its rage, and the links of SouthLeith, probably in less than half a century, will be swallowed up.' The road allud ed to has had to be removed again and again since this passage was written. Mr. Stevenson remarked in 1816, that even the new baths, erected but a few years before, at a considerable distance from the high-water mark, had then barely the breadth of the highway between them and the sea, which had overthrown the bulwark or fence in front of these buildings, and was then acting on the road itself. Maitland speaks, also, of a large tract of land on both sides of the port of Leith, which has liskewise disappeared. Nor are the inroads of the sea less marked as we continue our westward progress. The old links of Newhaven have disappeared. If the calculations of Maitland may be believed, three fourths of that flat, sandy tract were swallowed up in the twenty-two years preceding 1595. Even in the early part of the present century, it was in the recollection of some old fishermen then alive, that there stretched along the shore, in front of the grounds of Anchorfield, an extensive piece of links, on which they used to dry their nets, but which was now entirely washed away. The direct road between Leith and Newhaven used to pass along the shore to the north of Leith Fort, but it has long been demolished, and for at least fifty years the road has been carried inland by a circuitous route. The waste still goes on, though checked in some degree by the numerous bulwarks and piers which have been erected along the coast. The waves impinge at high tides upon a low cliff of the stiff blue till or boulder-clay, which readily yields to the combined influences of the weather. Hence large slices of the coast-line are from time to time precipitated to the beach. A footpath runs along the top of the bank overhanging the high-water mark, and portions of it are constantly removed along with landslips of clay. By this means, as the ground slopes upward from the sea, the cliff is always becoming higher with every successive excavation of its sea-front. The risk to foot-passengers is thus great; so many accidents indeed have occurred here, that the locality is known in the neighborhood as the Man-trap. Higher up the Firth of Forth, at the Bay of Barnbougle, a lawn of considerable extent once intervening between the old castle and the sea, has been demolished. Even in the upper reaches of the estuary, above the narrow strait at the Ferries, the waves have removed a considerable tract of land which once intervened between the sea and the present road leading westward from Queensferry. Similar effects have likewise been produced on the northern shores of the Firth, at Culross and eastward, by St. David's, Burntisland, Kirkcaldy, and Dysart. The seaports along this coast have all suffered, more or less, from encroachments of the sea-roads, fences, gardens, fields, piers, and even dwelling-houses, having been from time to time carried away. In the parish of Crail some slender remains of a priory existed down to the year 1803. These, along with the old gardens and fences, are now wholly swept away; but the adjoining grounds still retain the name of the Croft Lands of the Priory. At St. Andrews, Cardinal Beaton's castle is said to have been originally some distance from the sea; but it now almost overhangs the beach, and must ere long fall a prey to the waves. Passing northward along the eastern coast of Scotland, we find that the sea has encroached to a marked extent on the sands of Barry, on the northern side of the Firth of Tay. The light-houses which were formerly erected at the southern extremity of Button-ness, have been, from time to time, removed about a mile and a quarter further northward, on account of |