3fi Mr. Ferguson on the 



feet, but this only for a little space,— it is reckoned a feat to walk rounJ. 

 The sea flows in by a natural arch. In stormy weather, with an easterly 

 wind, the dashing of the waves through this narrow aperture, and the 

 recoil they make against the sides of the chasm, resemble the boiling of 

 a huge caldron, and hence the name. It was a beautifally calm day 

 when I was there. We took a boat and rowed round the point. We 

 found the aperture below not much broader than admitted an ordinary 

 sized boat. Even in the smoothest weather there is inside a peculiar 

 roll in the water, and as the rock is caverned out in all directions, there 

 is a hollow roar which adds very much to the sublimity of the scene. In 

 the pompous language of Dr. Johnson, which is, however, well adapted for 

 such a description as this, " we found ourselves in a place, which, though 

 we could not think ourselves in danger, we could scarcely survey without 

 some recoil of the mind. The basin in which we floated was nearly 

 circular, perhaps thirty yards in diameter. We were enclosed by a 

 natural wall, rising steep on every side, to a height which produced the 

 idea of insurmountable confinement. The interception of all lateral light 

 caused a dismal gloom. Round us was a perpendicular rock, above us 

 the distant sky, and below us an unknown profundity of water." 



Beyond Cruden the coast line extends about five miles, through the 

 parish of Peterhead, commencing a little to the south of the point of 

 Buchanness, and reaching beyond the town of Peterhead to the mouth of 

 the river Ugie. 



" Between the parish of Cruden," (I quote from the Statistical 

 Report,) " and the fishing village of Boddam, in this parish, the sea is 

 bounded by high cliffs of granite and other primitive rock, forming mural 

 precipices : and this part of the coast is indented with many chasms, 

 fissures, and caves, and these, in some cases, divide the granite from the 

 trap rock. From Boddam to the bay of Sandford the coast is low and 

 rocky. The bay of Sandford, extending some distance inland, is bounded 

 by a flat sandy shore, intermixed with pebbles." Between the point of 

 Salthouse Head and Keith Point, on which the town of Peterhead is built, 

 the bay of Peterhead extends about a mile inland. Its shores are flat and 

 rocky, terminating in sand and pebbles where it runs most inland. All 

 this coast from Boddam to Peterhead, although low towards the sea, the 

 rocks scarcely appearing above high water, except where the heads run 

 out, and a sandy beach extending most of the way, is nevertheless abutted 

 upon by clifls of diluvium of considerable height, so that the general 

 outline of the coast appears high. From Keith Point, which is the east- 

 most of Scotland, the coast recedes to the mouth of the Ugie, preserving 

 the same character of a rocky bottom, a sandy beach, and steep diluvial 

 clifls abutting on the sands. 



" The whole of the parish of Peterhead," (I quote again from the 

 Statistical Account,) " is upon primitive rock. In the Stirling hill, 

 Blackhill, and Hill of Cowsrieve, the granite or syenite rises to the 

 surface. Along the coast, and in other parts of the parish, it is covered 



