NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 79 
notwithstanding the intervening water space of the German 
Ocean, The purely continental climate is one of great 
extremes of temperature. 
The climate of the Forth Valley varies from western to 
eastern in character, and it differs from all the rest of 
Scotland in carrying the western type of climate further 
east than elsewhere. The reason of this can readily be 
understood. The rainfall of Scotland is chiefly derived from 
the south-westerly winds, which come laden with moisture 
from the Atlantic. Reaching our western shores, they find 
a great mass of high ground stretching from Cape Wrath 
southwards, against which they strike, streaming up the 
glens and cooling among the hilltops. Great volumes of 
rain are poured down the mountain sides and form the 
sources of all our large rivers. The winds pass eastwards, 
but the air being largely deprived of its moisture, less rain 
falls in the eastern regions. To this rule there is, in Scot- 
land, one marked exception. The high-lying plateau 
skirting our western shores is broken down in the low 
ground between the Forth and Clyde. There the winds 
pass eastwards still rain laden, and striking on the hills of 
south-western Perthshire and the Ochils, the rain is 
precipitated over districts which, but for the absence of hills 
to the south-west, would be comparatively dry. Clack- 
mannanshire, Kinross-shire, and West Fife, therefore, 
though in the east of Scotland, are, as regards rainfall, 
subject to western conditions. This is a fact of great im- 
portance to agricultural interests. 
Our region of heaviest rainfall is in the Highland region 
at the sources of the Teith and Forth. It consists of a 
group of very high hills, which are approached directly from 
the Atlantic by a series of converging glens—namely, those 
occupied by Loch Fyne, Loch Long, and Loch Lomond. 
The south-westerly winds sweep up these glens, and the 
moisture condenses among the hilltops of Glengyle and Glen 
Falloch, and produces an excessive rainfall. Last year at 
the head of Duchray Valley there fell the enormous total of 
10 feet 45 inches of rain. The Touch Hills and the hollow 
of Strathallan are considerably drier, and the carse lands 
drier still. The only portion of the Forth Valley which is 
