Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

CLYDE
and on the right the Kelvin and the Leven. The ap-
proximate altitude of its channel is 2000 feet ahove sea-
level at the source, 655 at Thankerton, 400 above Bon-
nington Linn, and 170 below Stonebyres Linn.
Such are the general features of the river Clyde,
details being supplied in the articles on the above-named
parishes, and the sub-articles therein referred to. But
we cannot refrain from quoting this masterly sketch by
Sir Arch. Geikie : — ' Of the three rivers, the Clyde, the
Forth, and the Tay, perhaps the most interesting is the
Clyde. Drawing its "waters from the very centre of the
Southern Uplands, it flows transverse to the strike of
the Silurian strata, until, entering upon the rocks of
the lowlands at Roberton, it turns to the NE along a
broad valley that skirts the base of Tinto (2335 feet),
at this point of its course approaching within 7 miles of
the Tweed. Between the two streams, of course, lies the
watershed of the country, ths drainage flowing on the
one side into the Atlantic, on the other into the North
Sea. Yet instead of a ridge or hill, the space between
the rivers is the broad flat valley of Biggar, so little
above the level of the Clyde that it would not cost much
labour to send that river into the Tweed. Indeed, some
trouble is necessary to keep the former stream from
eating through the loose sandy deposits that line the
valley, and finding its way over into Tweeddale. That
it once took that course, thus entering the sea at Ber-
wick instead of at Dumbarton, is probable ; and if some
of the gravel mounds at Thankerton could be reunited,
it would do so again. The origin of this singular part
of the watershed is probably traceable to the recession
of two valleys, and to the subsequent widening of the
breach by atmospheric waste and the sea. From the
western margin of the Biggar flat the Clyde turns to the
NW, flowing across a series of igneous rocks belonging
to the Old Red sandstone series. Its valley is there
wide, and the ground rises gently on either side into
low undulating hills. But often bending back upon
itself and receiving the Douglas Water, its banks begin
to rise more steeply, until the river leaps over the linn
at Bonnington into the long, narrow, and deep gorge in
which the well-known Falls are contained. That this
defile has not been rent open by the concussion of an
earthquake, but is really the work of subaerial denuda-
tion, may be ascertained by tracing the unbroken beds
of Lower Old Red sandstone from side to side. Indeed,
one could not choose a better place in which to study
the process of waste, for he can examine the effects of
rains, springs, and frosts, in loosening the sandstone by
means of the hundreds of joints that traverse the face of
the long cliffs, and he can likewise follow in all their
detail the results of the constant wear and tear of the
brown river that keeps ever tumbling and foaming down
the ravine. A little below the town of Lanark, Mouse
"Water enters the Clyde through the dark narrow chasm
beneath the Cartland Crags. There, too, though
' •' It seems some mountain, rent and riven,
A channel for the stream has (riven,"
yet after all it is the stream itself that has done the
work. Nay, it would even appear that this singularly
deep gorge has been in great measure cut out since the
end of the Age of Ice, for there is an old channel close
to it filled up with drift, but through which the stream
has evidently at one time flowed. Running still in a
narrow valley, the Clyde, after receiving Mouse Water,
hurrieB westward to throw itself over the last of its
linna at Stonebyres, and to toil in a long and dark gorge
until, as it leaves the Old Red sandstone, its valley
gradually opens out, and it then enters the great
Lanarkshire coalfield. From the top of the highest
Fall to the foot of the lowest, is a distance of 8J miles,
in which the river descends about 230 feet, or 61 feet
in a mile. From Stonebyres Linn to the sea at Dum-
barton, the course of the Clyde is a distance of fully 42
miles, yet its fall is only 170 feet, or about 4 feet I inch
in a mile. As it winds among its broad meadows and
fair woodlands, no one ignorant of the geology of the
district would be likely to imagine that this wide level
270
CLYDE
valley really overlies a set of strata which have been
tilted up and broken by innumerable dislocations. Yet
such is the fact. The flat haughs of the Clyde were
not laid out until after the curved and fractured coal-
measures had been planed down, and no extant trace of
these underground disturbances remained. The sea
may have had much of the earlier part of the work to
do, and may have lent its aid now and again during the
successive uprisings and sinkings of the land, but we
shall, perhaps, not greatly err in attributing mainly to
the prolonged action of rains and frosts, and of the
Clyde itself, the excavation of the broad valley in which
the river flows across the coalfield until it reaches the
sea between the hills of Renfrew and Dumbarton.'
The Fieth op Clyde has a length of 64^ miles, viz.,
4J from Dumbarton to Port Glasgow, 2J from Port
Glasgow to Greenock, 5 from Greenock to opposite Kirn,
and 52 thence to Ailsa Craig, midway between Girvan
and the Mull of Kintyre. Its breadth is 1 mile at Dum-
barton ; 3f miles from Greenock to Helensburgh ; 1J
from Kempock Point to Kilcreggan ; 3§ from Cloch Point
to Barons Point, 3 to Strone Point, and If to Dunoon ;
2 from Wemyss Point to Inellan pier ; 5$ from Largs
Bay to Scoulag Point ; 1J from Largs to the nearest
part of the Great Cumbrae ; 2£, at the narrowest, from
the Great Cumbrae to Bute ; 1A from Bute to the
Little Cumbrae ; 9J from Farland Head to Sannox
in NE Arran ; 13 from Turnberry to Dippin Head in
SE Arran ; and 37 from Girvan to the Mull of Kintyre.
It divides in its course the shires of Renfrew and A5T
from those of Dumbarton, Argyll, and Bute, having, on
the left hand, the parishes of Erskine, Port Glasgow,
Greenock, Innerkip, Largs, West Kilbride, Ardrossan,
Stevenston, Irvine, Dundonald, Monkton, Prestwick,
Newton-upon-Ayr, Ayr, Maybole, Kirkoswald, and Gir-
van ; on its right, Cardross, Roseneath, Dunoon-Kil-
mun, Bute, and Kintyre. Both shores are bordered with
the low green platform of the old sea-margin — a natural
terrace thickly fringed with towns and villages and plea-
sant mansions. Beautiful itself, with its backgrounds of
hill and mountain, the Firth of Clyde sends off five
branches that equal, if not surpass, it— Gare Loch, Loch
Long, Holy Loch, Loch Striven, and the Kyles of Bute.
The tide ascends it up to Glasgow ; and as low as Green-
ock its channel is beset with shoals and banks, which
appear at low water, but which, ceasing there, give place
to the unbroken stretch of firth that, widening and con-
tracting, then widening out again, at last bends south-
ward on its way to the open sea.
In 1566 the townsfolk of Glasgow, Renfrew, and Dum-
barton attempted, seemingly with scant success, to open
up a formidable sandbank at Dumbuck, above Dumbar-
ton ; in 1622 the magistrates of Glasgow, buying 13
acres, laid out thereon the town of Port Glasgow, with
harbours and the first graving-dock in Scotland ; in 1688
they built a quay at the Broomielaw ; and in 1740 ' the
Councill agreed that a tryal be made this season of deep-
ening the river below the Broomielaw, and remitted to
the Magistrates to cause do the same, and go the length
of £100 sterling of charges thereupon, and to cause build
a flatt-bottomed boat, to carry off the sand and chingle
from the banks.' In 1755 Smeaton presented a report,
in which he notes that of twelvo different shoals between
Glasgow and Renfrew the ' shoalest ' places, Pointhouse
Ford and Hirst, had a depth of 1J and 1J feet at low,
and 3ji and Z\ feet at high, water ; these, now the west-
ern limit and within the harbour of Glasgow, having a
present depth ot 16 at low, and 26 feet at high, water.
By Smeaton's advice, the first Act of Parliament (1759)
was applied for, whose preamble runs: — 'Whereas the
river Clyde from Dumbuck to the Bridge of Glasgow is
so very shallow in several parts thereof that boats,
lighters, barges, or other vessels cannot pass to or from
the City of Glasgow except it bo in the time of flood or
high-water at spring-tides ; and if the same was cleansed
and deepened, and the navigation thereof made more
commodious by a lock or dam over the same, it would
be a great advantage to the trade and manufactures of
the city and parts adjacent and to the public in general.'