ed with all kinds of
rubbish. Bibles and prayer-books still lay about among the seats, as
if the people had never so far recovered from the hopeless feeling
originally impressed upon them, as to put out a hand for the
restoration of order. The position of this church and its fate give
occasion for a remark which, if duly remembered and acted upon, may
save many a good building from destruction. It should be known, that
the meadow close beside a river--what is called in Scotland the
_haugh_--is not a suitable place for any building or town, and this
simply because it is, strictly speaking, a part of the river-bed. It
is the winter or flood-channel of the stream, and has indeed been
formed by it during inundations. Unless, therefore, under favour of
strong embankments, no building there can be secure from occasional
inundation. Thus, for example, a large part of Westminster, and nearly
the whole borough of Southwark, are built where no human dwellings
should be. The fair city of Perth is a solecism in point of site, and
many a flooding it gets in consequence. When a higher site can be
obtained in the neighbourhood, out of reach of floods, it is pure
folly to build in a _haugh_--that is, the first plain beside a river.

We were coming within a mile of the Bilberry embankment, when we began
to observe a new class of phenomena. Hitherto, the channel of the
stream had not exhibited any unusual materials; nor had its banks been
much broken, except in a few places. We had been on the outlook to
observe if the flood, and the heavy matters with which it was charged,
had produced any abrasion of the subjacent rock-structure. No such
effects could be traced. We were now, however, getting within the
range of the scattered debris of the embankment, and quickly detected
the presence of masses of a kind of rubbish different from the rounded
pebbles usually found in the bed of a river. There were long
_trainees_, composed of mud and clay, including angular blocks of
stone, which were constantly increasing in size as we passed onwards.
These blocks were the materials of the embankment, which the water had
carried thus far. No ploughing up of the channel had taken place, but
simply much new matter had been deposited. In some places, these fresh
deposits had transgressed into the fields; and where trees were
involved, the bark on the side toward the upper part of the valley had
generally been rubbed off. Not much more than a quarter of a m