PREFACE. ix 



illustration ; avoiding, as far as possible, any en- 

 croachment on such a description of it as can only 

 be the result of future investigations. It is probable 

 that some assistance will thus be afforded to those 

 who may hereafter, with more industry or oppor- 

 tunities, supersede the wish of the author to extend 

 this survey to the Scottish continent. 



In approximating the several parts, it became 

 very soon visible that the incessant repetition of 

 mere geological details, would produce a book 

 which would be repulsive to a general reader, and 

 laborious in no common degree, even to a geo- 

 logical one. To relieve this uniformity, as far as 

 was possible consistently with the scale and design 

 of the Work, a variety of matter, of a more mis- 

 cellaneous and general nature, has therefore been 

 introduced into the account of several of the islands, 

 just as it happened to be found in the writer's journal. 

 The more slender notices of this kind have naturally 

 fallen into the form of notes ; and it was no part 

 of the plan to introduce a personal narrative into the 

 description of a country so often visited by travellers. 

 Those travellers have, with various powers and with 

 different success, related much of that which might 

 otherwise have fallen to the lot of the author to 

 describe; but they have not related all, as no one 

 of them has made such wide excursions. That which 

 has already been described, has rarely been touched 

 again, as it could not often have been done better: 

 nor was it a part of this plan to write an universal 

 work on a subject so extensive as the present; 

 including, as it does, matter so various, and so 

 intimately connected with the ancient history and 

 present state of the Highlands of Scotland. If any 



