to the Castkton of Bracmar. 271 



its source, rises in a terribly wild region in the very bosom of 

 the Cairno-orm group of granite mountains, and, after a course 

 of fully 90 miles, flows into the sea at Aberdeen. The road to 

 the Castleton of Braemar, a distance of 58 miles, although 

 excellent, affords in many places much insight into the geo- 

 gnostical nature of the bounding hills and mountains. In the 

 first part of the road that leads from Aberdeen to Braemar, 

 gneiss and granite continued onwards to Banchory Ternan. 

 The granite is grey and red ; the red occurs most frequently in 

 veins. The gneiss, as is the case at Aberdeen, is grey and red, 

 and often traversed by granite veins. The banks of the Dee 

 to Banchory Ternan, as far as we had an opportunity of examin- 

 ing them, are tame and unpicturesque ; the hills lumpish and 

 heath-covered, and presenting but few cliffs. The sides of the 

 river exhibit deep deposites of alluvium. At a bridge across 

 the Dee, about a mile before reaching Kincardine O'Neil, there 

 is a magnificent vein of red felspar porphyry (eurite porphyry) 

 traversino- the gneiss ; in breadth it varies from six to twenty 



feet. From Kincardine CNeil to Charleton, a distance of six 



miles, the whole road nearly passes over alluvium ; the only 

 fixed rocks we observed were of gneiss. The alluvium is com- 

 posed of rolled masses of coarse and fine granular, grey and red 

 granite, gneiss, porphyry, primitive greenstone, porphyritic 

 hornblende-rock, and hornblende-slate. In the primitive green- 

 stone (diorite), iron-pyrites is disseminated, and also iserine. — 

 From Charleton, the road for several miles is over alluvium, 

 the same through which the river here forces its way. All 

 the way abundant rolled masses of red granite, hornblende 

 rocks of various kinds, &c. Granite in mass begins to ap- 

 pear at the 37<A mile-stone from Aberdeen. It is red and 

 grey, and coarse or fine granular, sometimes porphyritic, and 

 traversed by contemporaneous veins of small granular gra- 

 nite. The granite here crosses the Dee, and ranges upwards 

 among the bounding mountains, from both sides of the river. 

 In this quarter there are examples of natural cairns ; these are 

 heaps of masses of granite formed by the weathering and wash- 

 ing away of the softer granite, the harder parts remaining, form- 

 ing heaps rcscmbhng artificial cairns or tumuli. This granite 

 continues upwards to the Bridge of TuUoch. Here we no- 



