( 266 SKY. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



prevented me from supplying that defect.* An estimate 

 must for the present be substituted ; and it will not be 

 far from the truth if the altitude be taken as ranging 

 from 2000 to 3000 feet ; the lowest apparently not falling 

 short of the former, and the highest probably not exceed- 

 ing the latter elevation. As the names of the principal 

 hills appear in the map, it is unnecessary to enumerate 

 them, unless where the circumstances occurring in any 

 individual require particular notice, since they are all asso- 

 ciated by two or three leading characters. 



This group is divided into two portions, intimately 

 united, yet characterized by striking differences in their 

 external outlines and general features ; v circumstances 

 arising from differences of composition, although both 

 divisions equally appertain to the trap family. These 

 external features are accompanied by a remarkable differ- 

 ence of colour, which, together with the strong contrast 

 of their respective outlines, forcibly attracts the attention 

 of a spectator on arriving in this island. 



By far the larger portion presents a set of tame and 

 generally rounded outlines, particularly unpleasing to the 

 eye ; the hills that form it being all separated from each 

 other, and all equally characterized by the smooth and blunt 

 conoidal shape ; not a single projection appearing to break 

 the uniform line they make on the sky, and their surfaces 

 being equally devoid of the variety arising from bold crags 

 or deep recesses. To add to the generally unpleasing 

 effect, they often arise at once from the low grounds, 



* When the reader is told that I made seven attempts and in five 

 successive summers to ascend the Cuchullin hills, he will form some 

 notion of the nature of the climate and will perhaps receive this as 

 a sufficient apology. Sky is however exempt from the durable snows 

 which during the winter cover the adjoining mainland. Asking a young 

 female who was weeding some wretched potatoes in Loch Hourn, when 

 the snow dissolved, the answer wits " It never gangs till the rain comes" 

 such is the alternative. 



