On the evidences of glacier action in Galloway. Part I

Abstract

Some years ago we had the good fortune to be introduced by a friend to the grand mountain land of Galloway, and since then we have spent part of every summer there, and have become somewhat familiar with its varied beauties. In scenery it is remarkable. There you may see transcripts of the pastoral sweetness of Yarrow, the rich beauty of Derwent Water, the lonely stillness of the Enterkin, and wildness wilder than that of the Moor of Rannoch. But it is not to such themes, however tempting, that we desire now to draw your attention, but to certain geological phenomena of great interest and of the most striking character—the evidences that exist in that region of the glacial epoch of our country. We do so because these phenomena could scarcely be surpassed, and ought to be better known to Scottish geologists, and because this part of the southern Highlands has not received the attention, either scenically or geologically, its eminent claims entitle it to. It is certainly remarkable that we have here a grand mountain region, within a day’s journey of the capital, full of scenery of the highest type, and possessing the greatest geological interest, and yet less known to tourists and the men of the hammer than even the wilds of Ross and Caithness; little more being generally known of it geologically than that it forms part of the great Silurian belt of the south of Scotland. This ought not to be so. It is, therefore, with