SETTLEMENT AT NETHER TON. 12$ 



looked into, on the west, by the fine cone of the more 

 distant Buck of the Cabrach. It is carefully cultivated to 

 the tops of the enclosing hills, in a way that gives Alford 

 no mean place in Aberdeenshire farming. Altogether, it 

 is a sweet upland strath, beautified by fine scenery, and 

 a pleasant place of abode. 



Its houses have an air of happy comfort, its people are 

 well clad and intelligent-looking, its churches though 

 plain are not unpleasant, and its schools show that educa- 

 tion is valued, as it generally is in Aberdeenshire. Though 

 upland and inland, it now possesses its own railway, which 

 joins it to the main line and the outer world, While the new 

 village of Alford, created by the steam-engine, with its fine 

 churches, banks and hotel, proves an active spirit of enter- 

 prise, which is a pledge of prosperity. Like all places long 

 dwelt in, the Vale has also its great modern mansions, its 

 ruined old castles, its older remains of prehistoric peoples, 

 and its battle-field for what fairest spot has not been 

 stained with human blood ? where Montrose won one of 

 his dashing victories in 1645. 



The aspect and structure of its rocks and hills indicate 

 still more ancient events, pointing back to the eras before 

 the trees of the coal period grew, or the fishes of the Old 

 Red swam, to the great Silurian ages, which deposited the 

 gneiss of its upper reaches; and to the wilder disturbances 

 that produced the beautiful granites of its lower portions; 

 while the whle Vale and its surroundings bear abundant 

 traces of the latest geologic changes, when the land was 

 scratched and ground and smoothed by glacial ice. 



The Vale expands into several side chambers or valleys, 

 watered by tributaries of the Don. In one of these 



