ARRAN. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 3 1 1 



ARRAN/ 



THE picturesque beauty and the variety of Arran, 

 united to its accessible situation, render it as much an 

 object of attraction to all classes of visitors, as the nature 

 of its geological structure and details has long since done 

 to geologists. From the rocky and rugged mountain, 

 to the swelling hill, the open valley, or the green retired 

 glen, it presents all that diversity of surface which is 

 rarely found condensed into so small a compass, and, 

 more rarely still, combined with an insular situation. 

 The shores equally display all the varieties of maritime 

 scenery; rising into bold cliffs, or subsiding into open 

 bays, which are further diversified by cultivation and 

 by wood, no less than by scattered farm houses, and 

 by the occasional occurrence of the castles of former 

 times. As it presents examples of that variety which 

 is displayed on the surface of the earth, so it offers to 

 the geologist an epitome of the structure of the globe; 

 forming a model of practical geology for the instruction 

 of the beginner and for the study of all. 



The length of this island is about twenty miles, and 

 the breadth about ten ; while in consequence of the 

 regularity of its form, the superficial area is nearly equal 

 to the parallelogram that would result from multiplying 

 its sides. The prevailing line of the shores is low, al- 

 though in many parts they present precipitous faces, 

 which seldom however rise to any considerable height. 

 It is readily divisible into two portions, the moun- 

 tainous and the hilly, of which the mineral characters 

 are nearly as distinct as the external aspect. 



The former occupies the north end of the island, being 



* Ar, a field of battle ; aud Fin, the hero of the Gael. So say 

 the Highlanders. Quidlibet e quolibet. See the Map. 



