334 ARRAN. ALLUVIA. 



for conjecture to those who have not themselves had an 

 opportunity of examining it, remain unrecorded. It is to 

 be hoped that they will not remain so for ever. 



THE altitude of the mountains of Arran, and its position 

 in respect to the high lands to the eastward, render 

 the climate peculiarly rainy ; from which cause the rivers 

 of this island are both more numerous and permanent 

 than we should be led from its magnitude to expect. 

 Still, they are small streams, yet their courses, and more 

 particularly their estuaries, are often marked by con- 

 siderable deposits of alluvial matter. 



The most conspicuous of these constitutes a sort of delta 

 in Brodick bay ; forming a considerable tract of flat land, 

 apparently gained from the sea by a gradually accumu- 

 lating deposition, which, even yet, is shallowing the 

 bottom of the bay and throwing up bars to the impedi- 

 ment of its navigation. The streams running from Glen 

 Rossie, Glen Shira, and Glen Cloy, contribute jointly to 

 the formation of this plain, which seems to have been 

 derived solely from the action of the waters that descend 

 from the neighbouring mountains, and to be constituted 

 of their ruins. The waters of the Sannox glen have also 

 brought down from above, considerable quantities of 

 matter. But the shore being here open, and unprotected 

 from the current of the tide and wash of the waves, 

 no plain has been formed. A gravel bank is the only 

 result ; its progress and increase being prevented by the 

 sea, which distributes the materials along the shore, or 

 washes them out into greater depths. Loch Ransa, of 

 which the depth and shelter, moderate or check the action 

 of the sea, has afforded a place for the lodgment of these 

 transported substances, by which the size of this bay has 

 been materially diminished, and is doubtless still in a 

 state of diminution. The castle is built on a bank of 

 this alluvium ; long since consolidated, and forming a 



