Leith.] AN ANCIENT BEACH. 2 49
and here, too, stands South Leith Poor-house, with
the parochial offices facing Junction Road.
When the foundations of the hospital here were
dug in 1850, indications were discovered of how
of the ocean, at some time posterior to Noah,
ebbed and flowed over the ground on which
these buildings are at present erected.? As the
place was in the line of the fortifications, relics
ANCIENT PARLIAMENT HOUSE, PARLIAMENT SQUARE.
purpura, buccinum, ostrea, myths, and balanus,
were found (Robertson). These were seen in
extensive layers under marine sand, twelve and
fifteen feet below the surface, and twenty-five
above high water. ?Being marine shells of existing
species, the great mass not edible, and so densely
compacted in layers from the hospital to the
Junction Road-nearly an acre of land-it may
rationally be concluded that the green waters
12 8
as a forty-eight pound ball of a cannon-royale,
some antique harness, a large fore!ock, and
the wheelcap or stock-point of a piece of artillery.
To the Humane Society we have referred, in its
cradle at the Burgess Wynd. It would appear that
soon after its formation a complete set of apparatus
for recovering the drowned was presented to it, and
, to the town of Leith, by the Humane Society of
