XVIII. On the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy.
By the J. Mac Culloch, M.D. F.L.S.
president of the geological society,
Chemist to the Ordnance,
Lecturer on Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy,
and Geologist to the Trigonometrical Survey.
The extraordinary and hitherto solitary phenomena which I
have undertaken to describe, although long known and celebrated
by the natives as the traditional works of their great ancestors, remained
concealed from the world in general till Mr. Pennant published
a short account of Glen Roy in an appendix to his Tour.
A second description appeared in the Statistical Survey of Scotland,
since which I know not that any attempt has been made to explain
the origin of the Parallel Roads, although they have long been
objects of curiosity to philosophical as well as to ordinary tourists.
However convinced the Highlanders may have formerly been that
these parallel roads, as they are called, were the works of Fingal
and the heroes of his age, they have lately inclined to a different
belief, and with most philosophers are willing to think that they
may have been the result of the action of water. Still the matter
remains disputed among the partizan's of the different theories, and
as the establishment of the latter opinion is attended with geological
consequences of the first importance, it deserves to be investigated
with the greatest care.
