6o 



HA RD WICKE'S S CIENCE- G OS SI P. 



lage of this method is, that a cell can be made of any 

 size and of any height at one operation ; and that 

 no cement whatever is required. If the wax is 

 properly prepared, the cells will stand any fair usage, 

 and are not liable to leak or crack. 



John Boyd. 



HOLIDAY RAMBLES, 



In Far Kintail. 



By G. C. Druce, F.L.S., Hon. Sec. Oxfordshire 

 Nat. Hist. Soc. 



\Cotiiiuucd/roin />. 35.] 



AT Shiel House after a twenty miles' walk, some 

 slight rest was made, but at last the sky had 

 fairly cleared, and there was all the glory of Glen Shiel 

 and Kintail before, just in front Scuir Ouran, a huge 

 hill near 4000 feet high, rising from within a few feet of 

 the sea level almost without a break, certainly without 

 a perceptible break, to its grand rocky coronet. What 

 monarch was there near to rival ? What scene more 

 wild than the glen to which it formed so fine an orna- 

 ment? The ojDposite side of Glen Shiel was not less 

 steep if lower, but instead of separating into distinct 

 hills, it formed rather a finely broken crest of fantastic 

 outline, like some rocky reef against which only the 

 waves of cloud and mist broke from time to time ; at 

 the glen's head some burn came tumbling down in 

 rapid violence, but not surrounded here with any 

 mass of foliage, the whole glen being almost destitute 

 of trees, except by the riverside where some dark 

 alders added little to its liveliness, and the few birch 

 were too small and scattered to be readily distin- 

 guished from the stony slopes on which they grew. 

 So it was to Scuir Ouran we wended our steps over 

 as rough and sloppy a two miles' walk as a traveller 

 could object to, and then commenced a climb up the 

 ridge which rises from the bottom of the glen and 

 goes sheer up to the summit. There is a tradition 

 that a Scotch piper once went to the top of Ouran 

 playing his pipes all the time, but that on reaching 

 the summit he died of exhaustion ; without in any 

 way reflecting upon the steepness, it occurred to us 

 to imagine that most people would do the same long 

 before reaching the summit, even without the pipes, 

 not to speak of a vasculuni ; however, without any 

 such tragic end to the expedition, we struggled through 

 the thick zone of Ftcris which girdled the lower 

 slopes to the heather-covered rocks above, the heather 

 here and there giving way to OrcoJ>teris, or became 

 mixed with Ca7-ex hinervis, Aiia iiiontaiia, Jit7icits 

 squarrosits or Liizida congcsta ; higher still Arbutus 

 Uva-ursi began to put in an appearance, followed by 

 Lycopodiuvi Selago, davatum, and alpiiiuin ; now came 

 little plashy spots frequented by Carex flava, Saxi- 

 fraga stt'llaris, and Piuguicula, while some of the 

 great boulders now showed at their base in addition 



to the Lastrea dilatata, and Cystopteris seen before, 

 the bright-looking parsley fern, and the delicate 

 fronds of Dryopteris, but these oases were few and 

 far between ; the sheep nibble off everything less 

 indigestible than heather stems. Then still higher till 

 we can look over hills, which from below attempted 

 to rival our kingly Scuir, now fall into their proper 

 places of mere courtier-like attention, and the shoulders 

 of our monarch get ornamented with the little Gna- 

 phalium supinutn ; Luzula spicata, and Carex rigida 

 continue to near the summit. The mountain's crown, 

 unsullied with any Righi decoration, consists of huge 

 blocks of stone, some few of which roughly piled 

 up form a cairn, from which no finer view could be 

 desired than that which now lay around us. Below 

 stretched Glen Shiel in all its stern beauty, rising 

 into the wonderful barrier-ridge whose points and 

 precipices now assumed new and more wonderful 

 shapes ; behind these again other hatchet ridges, 

 several of them in all their wonderful serrature 

 between us and Loch Hourn, about which mountains 

 of wonderful ruggedness were thickly congregated ; to 

 the south, Ben Nevis in all his lumpy massiveness was 

 plainly seen, to the west the Cuchullins of Skye 

 were tossing up their rocky peaks into the glory of 

 the sunset which changed them in colour from time 

 to time; to the north-east Ben Attow, a strange- 

 shaped hill with sharp ridges and furrowed sides, 

 seemed close enough to throw to, and then the mass 

 of Kintail summits, such as Scuir na Cairan, blocked 

 up the foreground, but farther away, in Eastern Ross, 

 was the far-stretching Ben Wyvis, whose ten mile 

 ascent is so wearisome, if not uninteresting. But 

 perhaps it was the eastern view that was most 

 attractive, here, at this evening hour, when all the 

 power and beauty of that too-seldom seen sun, was 

 casting its vivid light into the hundred glens and 

 ravines unknown almost to tourists, that lay stretched 

 out in puzzling mazes, watered by the rivers Beauly, 

 the Findhorn or the Farrar ; such glens as Strath 

 Affrick with its massy rock environments, or such 

 wild lonely glens as Strath Farrar, or Glen Elchaig, 

 over and beyond all Nairnshire to Forres, one is 

 almost afraid to say how far away. But the clouds on 

 yonder ridge are hanging more closely than before, and 

 now streaks are spreading across and a colder temper- 

 ature is felt as these driving particles sweep by, and 

 Loch Alsh is deepening into purple while one cloud 

 above Duich is still flaming orange on that lucid green 

 blue sky. So not satiated, but satisfied, we take leave 

 of the mountain glory ere the gloom is fully felt, and 

 before the stiff descent is completed, the clouds have 

 come down lower. Glen Shiel looks more sombre, 

 the loch is grey rather than purple ; but Ouran, free 

 from the clouds which have entangled themselves on 

 lower hills, shines out clear in all its rocky grandeur, 

 true monarch of the place. 



The next day was to be another red-letter day, for 

 were we not to see the Falls of Glomak, the highest 



