296 APPENDIX. 



shore of Loch. Shin, as well as the scattered plots of 

 crofters' possessions here and there over the county, and 

 others of the less important areas. 



Of the fresh-water area, the largest body of water is 

 Loch Shin, being 18 miles in length, and having an 

 average width of one to one and a half miles. This 

 great lake forms an almost continuous canal - way, 

 along with Lochs Griam, Merkland, More, and Stack, 

 between Lairg at the south-west end of Loch Shin, and 

 Laxford Loch on the west coast, interrupted only by the 

 watershed, of comparatively low altitude, between Loch 

 Merkland and Loch More. Other large sheets of water, 

 all holding salmon, or trout, or sea-trout and char, are 

 Lochs Naver, Laoghal, and Hope, in the north, connecting 

 with the Pentland Firth ; Lochs Assynt, Cama, Veyattie, 

 Fewn, and Urigill ; and Lochs Stack and More before men- 

 tioned. In the east centre are the large lochs, Badenloch, 

 Loch-na-Clar, and Rimisdale or Loch-na-Cuien, out of which 

 flows the Helmsdale river ; and in the south-east is Loch 

 Brora, through which flows the river of the same name, both 

 it and the Helmsdale running into the German Ocean. 

 Besides these larger reservoirs of water there are innum- 

 erable lochs, lochans, and tarns of smaller area, especially 

 numerous in the western districts of the county. 



Besides the above, we have a wooded area of natural 

 birch-wood or planted ground, amounting in all, approxi- 

 mately, to 7296 acres, or about 11 square miles. By far 

 the greatest part of this area is in the south-east, between 

 Dunrobin and the Dornoch Firth, and, though somewhat 

 reduced of late, the woods around Bosehall. Also those 

 on the eastern bank of the river Oykel, and again at 

 Tongue in the north and Loch Inver in the west ; but of 

 these we will have again to speak when describing the 

 physical aspect of the county. Even this comparatively 

 small area of wood has a great influence on the fauna and 

 flora. The above figures refer in most part to the last 

 ascertained areas in Mr. M 'Donald's paper in Tlie High- 

 land and Agricultural Society's Trans, for 1880. It would 

 appear that in 1853 the woodland acreage was 10,812, 



