NORTH UIST. SOIL AND SURFACE. 



of population, if we consider either its number or dis- 

 tribution. To produce these changes by violent mea- 

 sures is difficult, as various attempts have proved ; were 

 we even to leave out of consideration the painful moral 

 effects which follow all those sudden and violent changes 

 that operate on the state of population in a country. 

 The changes have however commenced, and they cannot 

 fail to spread. For the total benefit of the community, 

 it is to be desired that they should, but it is also to 

 be wished that they should take place with the least 

 possible inconvenience and suffering to those who must, 

 to some extent at least, be displaced. When the land 

 shall have been raised to its adequate value, and to 

 the state of improvement of which it is susceptible, a 

 class of independent labourers will naturally arise to 

 accompany the change ; and the manufacture of kelp, 

 which has perhaps already been dwelt on too long, 

 will be subjected to a new calculation. But to proceed 

 to the description of this island. 



THREE distinct groups of hills occupy the western 

 side of North Uist. The northernmost of these consists 

 of a tame ridge bounding the sound of Harris, of which 

 Ben Breach and Ben More form the chief eminences. 

 The highest of these scarcely attains to 1000 feet. In 

 the middle of the western division is found a second 

 group, of which Croghan is the principal eminence, at- 

 taining to all appearance a height of 1500 feet, while 

 the south western side terminates in a prolonged and 

 irregular group of much lower elevation and of a smooth 

 undulating surface, gradually declining into an uneven 

 tract of good land. This forms the principal part of 

 the arable land in North Uist, and is, in an agricultural 

 view, the most profitable. The soil contains clay, a 

 rare occurrence in this tract of country, and this by aid 

 of the peat that in a greater or less degree predominates 



