Phenomena of glaciation exhibited by the rocks of Corstorphine Hill, near Edinburgh

Abstract

Having observed a few months ago in Switzerland, as I mentioned in a recent paper (see p. 13), numerous fine instances of roches moutonnees, I desired, when I came home, to look again at the rocks of Corstorphine Hill, which had always to my mind presented a singular appearance. I have therefore made a pretty general survey of the hill, and I have come to the conclusion that the phenomena exhibited by its superficial geology are frequently remarkably similar to the roches moutonnees I observed among the Alps. The extremely interesting character of the rocks of Corstorphine Hill is not, I think, sufficiently known,—one cause of the absence of investigation of them on the part of the public being, I have no doubt, the fact that the various small properties of which the hill is composed bristle with placards proclaiming the various proprietors’ exclusive rights of property. Such notices will undoubtedly deter many from rambling over Corstorphine Hill in pursuit of scientific knowledge. From my general survey of Corstorphine Hill, it seems to me that it has evidently been subjected at one time to the abrading action of an agent operating like ice. The minutely complete way in which the surfaces of the many rock-masses in situ have been rounded and polished; the uniform contour which these smoothened rock-masses display; and the wide extent of area over which polished rocks are found on Corstorphine Hill, are circumstances which, from Alpine instances, we know are attendant upon glacial action, and which