,534 MULL. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



the highest of this group, towering above all the rest 

 with almost the same superiority that Ben Nevis rises 

 above the general levels of the hills which surround it. 

 The height of Ben more, as I found it by the barometer, 

 is 3097 feet,* while that of Ben y chat, the highest hill 

 next to it, is only 2294 : and this latter may without much 

 error be assumed as the average elevation of the remainder 

 of the mountainous division. This division gradually sub- 

 sides on the north and east into the low land near Aros 

 and into the flat shores which skirt the sound of Mull 

 from that place to Duart ; while to the south it descends 

 to the sloping shores of Loch Scredon, or is blended with 

 the range of uniformly high land that constitutes the 

 southern trap division. 



The outline of this portion is strongly marked in 

 one part by the high cliffs which extend from Inimore 

 to Loch Buy, while to the eastward of that bay it 

 declines into the flat shores and indented outline of 

 Loch Speliv and Loch Don. At the western extremity 

 it blends with the primary division, which, with a strongly 

 indented and rocky outline, is either disposed in small 

 and numerous rugged eminences through which the 

 naked rock is every where seen projecting, or presents 

 the more undulating features that attend the schistose 

 varieties of gneiss. 



* On this mountain I was accidentally led to observe the degree of 

 cold produced by the mixture of ice and alcohol. A storm of hail had 

 fallen, accompanied by a temperature below freezing. Some whiskey, 

 the usual appendage of a Highland viaticum, being produced, I was 

 obliged to dilute it by putting some hail into the cup. In an instant 

 the metal was covered with ice and frozen to the grass : on trial, the 

 quicksilver of the thermometer sank into the bulb. On repeating this 

 experiment afterwards with common alcohol, the cold was found to 

 amount to forty-nine or fifty degrees. It presents a convenient method 

 of obtaining a low temperature when other less common materials are 

 not at hand. 



