On a lacustrine deposit near Holyrood

Abstract

The area of the Queen’s Park may owe its physiographic features as much to denuding as to volcanic agencies. Observers have previously directed attention to evidences of the activity of the former series of forces around the South Back of Canongate—the site of the following notice. Numerous boulders were known to be prevalent during the youth of the oldest inhabitant, extending from the Queen’s Park towards the Castle. The crag and tail of the Castle Rock and of Salisbury Crags have been cited as evidences of violent floods, whose onward progress may have been arrested and diverted by the hard prominences of the Calton Hill. And the smaller lakelets, which may be traced from near the summit to the base of Arthur Seat, have been considered by some to be the last evidences of a condition of things almost universal in the surrounding area. The origin of the St. Leonard’s valley has long been a vexed problem of local geology. The abrupt gradient from Jeanie Deans’ Cottage to the northern termination of St. Leonard’s Crags, near Cowan’s works, has been looked on by some as the work of a rapid current in connection with the estuary waters which, at one time, may have reached near Holyrood. But others have put in the plea of retarding judgment on account of the indistinct way in which the sequence of the surrounding superficial deposits, as well as those around Edinburgh generally, have been made out. The section about to be described affords important