214 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



immediately be a sound policy for upper proprietors to deal with 

 all natural obstructions in the semicircle of rivers which go to 

 form the Conon, viz., the Orrin, Meig, the central and main 

 falls of the Conon itself, and also the Falls of Rogie on the 

 Blackwater. 



In the Orrin, the bed of the river beyond the fall is, of course, 

 alluvium, liable to much shifting during floods ; but it is taken 

 advantage of by many spawners. The water is rather stony 

 and shallow as a rule to be described as really good rod-fishing 

 water. I confess I have never visited the water above the falls. 

 No salmon are to be found there at present, and one hesitates 

 unnecessarily to penetrate into deer country, but a careful 

 noting of the gradient of Glen Orrin shows that the descent of 

 the stream is comparatively uniform, except perhaps at Cam- 

 baan, about the centre of the glen, where the descent is more 

 rapid than elsewhere. The eight miles which form the main 

 section of the glen show a fall in level of only 153 feet. I have 

 pointed out that in the case of the Blackwater the descent to 

 the main river from the outlet of Loch Garve, past the Falls of 

 Rogie, is fairly rapid. In the case of the Orrin the descent from 

 the mountain valley tract to the lower ground below the fall is 

 considerably greater, there being a drop of fully 400 feet in 

 four miles. 



THE ALNESS 



This little river enters the Cromarty Firth on the north-west, 

 and has, therefore, a common estuary with the larger river 

 Conon. It has also the same close times for rod and net. 



The river rises from a number of hill streams in the Kilder- 

 morie Forest, which collect from the south of the ridge separat- 

 ing Glencalvie Forest on the north. The resulting stream 

 flows north-east and then south-east, a distance of ten miles, 

 to Loch Morie, a sheet of water about 2 J miles long and 622 feet 

 above sea-level. From the loch, the stream passes off in an 

 easterly direction, and in about three miles is joined from the 

 north by the Rusdale, which has a course very nearly as long 

 as that of the upper Alness. From the junction at the Inchlum 

 Woods the main river has a course of seven miles to the sea 

 below Alness village. The total length of the river is thus 

 about twenty miles, and as the fall in level in the lower ten 



