Dr. Mac CuUoch on the Chart of Shetland. 213 



be recognised under different positions, or under that position, 

 at least, in which it is most likely to be seen. The picturesque 

 representations of coasts and headlands in sea charts are not 

 often accurately or characteristically given; and the necessity 

 that every surveyor should have a facility in drawing landscape, 

 is but too obvious in many better charts than that of Shetland. 



A great aid to the judgment is afforded, in all these cases, 

 by the mode of expressing the shores on the geographic outline ; 

 whether it be low and sandy, or skirted with low rocks, or con- 

 sisting of cliffs of different degrees of elevation. In the chart 

 of Shetland these circumstances seem often to have been placed 

 at random ; while equal value is often given to rocky shores of a 

 few feet in elevation, and to cliffs reaching to many hundreds. 

 To quote examples is but too easy. The west and east sides of 

 Foula are laid down as if they were of the same elevation ; 

 whereas, on the former side, the cliffs exceed a thousand feet 

 in height, and the latter is almost uniformly low, and, in some 

 places, indeed, quite level with the sea. The same error is 

 found in many parts of Yell, Unst, and Fetlar; where low 

 shores, and even sandy bays, are laid down as if they consisted 

 of lofty cliffs. Trestra Bay in Fetlar, and Uyea Sound in Unst, 

 are remarkable examples of this error. The island of Balta is 

 another; in which the high cliffs of the eastern shore, and the 

 low and often sandy outline of the western, are represented by 

 the same hieroglyphic. I need not enumerate other striking 

 instances of the same inaccuracy ; as, to go over them in detail, 

 would be to give an analysis of the whole lengthened outline of 

 this intricate and indented coast. 



To the mere geographer, the most gross inaccuracy of the 

 chart of Shetland, consists, not. only in the displacement, 

 but in the absolute omission, of many of the smaller islands ; 

 some of which are far from being of trifling dimensions. I shall 

 content myself, as before, in pointing out some of the most re- 

 markable of these ; as the want of an accompanying chart on a 

 large scale would render the detail of trifling particulars as un- 

 intelligible as it would be tiresome. It will be easily understood, 

 that, independently of the mere geographical defects, these 



