58 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lxi. 



A Striking Peculiarity. — Loch Dubh is a quarter of a 

 mile in length and is about twelve hundred feet above sea- 

 level. It is situated on the shoulder of Beinn Bharain, 

 and must receive a very copious supply of water, yet in 

 the map of the Ordnance Survey no outlet is assigned it. 

 At the northern extremity there is the bed of a stream 

 leading to Loch Tana, yet, though there had been con- 

 siderable rain recently, in the upper portion there was no 

 water, though there was abundant evidence that at times in 

 it there is the rush of a torrent. The explanation must be 

 that the basin and sides of the loch are so gravelly that in 

 ordinary weather the water finds through them sufficient 

 exit. 



I now passed to Loch Tana (the Long Loch) and 

 thence directed my course eastward. 



Mr. Smith, Monkredding, Kilwinning, in a remarkable 

 paper, entitled "JSTew View of the Arran Granite Mountains," 

 read March 1895 to the Glasgow Geological Society, and 

 since printed, writes : " The Allt-an-Champ (the Camp 

 Burn) gets its name from an old practice of the natives to 

 camp here with their cattle during summer, and remains 

 (traces) of their huts are still to be seen. It presents us at 

 one part with a little glen cut in the solid rock to a depth 

 of perhaps twenty feet. Growing out of a joint of the 

 granite and overhanging the glen is a much-branched 

 specimen of Pyrus aria, rare in this country. This is one 

 of the few trees in the granitic area, and has not escaped 

 the notice of the natives, who have a tradition that ' once 

 upon a time a strange bird brought a seed and planted it 

 here, and out of the seed grew this tree.' " The xVllt-an- 

 Chanip is a western tributary of the lorsa and joins it 

 2h miles south of Loch-na-Davie. Guided by Mr. Smith's 

 interesting statement, and with the hope that the plant lie 

 mentions might not be a solitary example, I struck this 

 stream half-way up and followed it u}) and down. I was 

 successful, as 1 found several of the rare tree. I now 

 |)ushed on by Loch-na-Davie to Corrie. — Eleven hours. 



Second Succc^^fnl Excursion. — When visiting, on former 

 occasions, the head of Glen Catacol at its eastern division, 

 where the Rare Pyrus has long been known to grow, I 

 had noticed the stee]j gorge here ascending from its left 



