THE SALMON RIVERS AND 

 LOCHS OF SCOTLAND 



INTRODUCTORY 



A 



It is difficult at first to realise that our mountains have been 

 made by our rivers, yet such seems to be the literal truth. 

 When the geologist restores the country, in imagination, to 

 its earliest condition, he sees it as a great plateau of more or 

 less uniform height. He finds the main axis lies in a north- 

 east and south-west direction, and from this the water has 

 run off chiefly in transverse courses. Through process of time, 

 in which " a thousand years are but as yesterday," the erosion 

 eats back from the mouths of the water channels towards the 

 main divide, and rivers begin to show the characters we now 

 recognise ; the lower courses through the wide open valleys, 

 the upper courses still descending from considerable heights. 



All our Scottish mountains of any importance are of more 

 or less similar height. We have no towering peaks as in 

 Switzerland. Our hill-tops represent, in a somewhat modified 

 degree, the surface of our old plateau. Our rivers and glaciers 

 have scooped out the valleys so as to form the hills, and have 

 sculptured the face of our beautiful country. 



On top of the old rocks lie, or at one time lay, great depths of 

 sandstones, which have evidently filled up our early valleys. 

 To account for this and other features it is necessary, geologists 

 tell us, to understand that the old and already much eroded 

 plateau sank beneath the waves, and that the sand was thus 

 laid down, so that when the country again emerged from the 

 waters the plateau formation was practically restored. Twice, 

 therefore, have the rivers become formed and twice have our 

 hills and valleys come into being. The more recent valleys 

 did not necessarily follow the former courses ; water did not 



1 A 



