tly downwards, but he caught the
rock, secured the old painter and saved him. Newspapers from all
parts of the Union poured in upon me, describing this gallant act of
my guide Conroy.

********************

VIII. THE PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY.

[Footnote: A discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great
Britain on June 9, 1876.]

THE first published allusion to the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy occurs
in the appendix to the third volume of Pennant's 'Tour in Scotland,' a
work published in 1776. 'In the face of these hills,' says this
writer, 'both sides of the glen, there are three roads at small
distances from each other and directly opposite on each side. These
roads have been measured in the complete parts of them, and found to
be 26 paces of a man 5 feet 10 inches high. The two highest are
pretty near each other, about 50 yards, and the lowest double that
distance from the nearest to it. They are carried along the sides of
the glen with the utmost regularity, nearly as exact as drawn with a
line of rule and compass.'

The correct heights of the three roads of Glen Roy are respectively
1150, 1070, and 860 feet above the sea. Hence a vertical distance of
80 feet separates the two highest, while the lowest road is 210 feet
below the middle one.

These 'roads' are usually shelves or terraces formed in the yielding
drift which here covers the slopes of the mountains. They are all
sensibly horizontal and therefore parallel. Pennant accepted as
reasonable the explanation of them given by the country people in his
time. They thought that the roads 'were designed for the chase, and
that the terraces were made after the spots were cleared in lines from
wood, in order to tempt the animals into the open paths after they
were rouzed, in order that they might come within reach of the bowmen
who might conceal themselves in the woods above and below.'

In these attempts of 'the country people' we have an illustration of
that impulse to which all scientific knowledge is due--the desire to
know the causes of things; and it is a matter of surprise that in the
case of the parallel roads, with their weird appearance challenging
enquiry, this impulse did not make itself more rapidly and
energetically felt. Their remoteness may perhaps account for the fact
that until the year 1817 no systematic description of them, and no
scientific attempt at an explanation of them, appeared. In that year
Dr. MacCulloch, who wa