THE FRESH- WATER LOCHS OF SCOTLAND. 317 



one of the most beautiful of mountains, with picturesque outline, the 

 highest point exceeding 2500 feet; beyond Leitirmhor the granite is 

 being quarried for building purposes, leaving a great scar on the 

 hillside. To the east of the northern portion of the loch rises Beinn's 

 Tomaine (Ben Stomino) to a height of 1728 feet, along the base of 

 which the shore of the loch is thickly wooded. In outline the loch 

 resembles somewhat a Wellington boot, with the toe pointing in a 

 westerly direction, while the body of the loch trends almost north 

 and south. The loch is 4 miles in length, with a maximum breadth 

 of nearly a mile, the mean breadth exceeding half a mile. The waters 

 of the loch cover an area of about 1630 acres, or over 2| square miles, 

 and it drains directly an area of over 24 square miles, but since it 

 receives the overflow from Loch Cuil na Sithe, its total drainage area 

 exceeds 33 square miles. The maximum depth of 217 feet was 

 observed near the foot of the loch, little more than half a mile from 

 the northern shore. The volume of water contained in the loch is 

 estimated at 4628 millions of cubic feet, and the mean depth at 65J 

 feet. The loch was surveyed on September 26 to 29, 1902, and the 

 elevation of the lake-surface 011 commencing the survey was found, 

 by levelling from bench-mark, to be 369-9 feet above the sea; when 

 levelled by the officers of the Ordnance Survey on August 29, 1870, 

 the elevation was found to be 369'2 feet above sea-level. The highest 

 drift-mark observed was 2J feet above the surface of the water at the 

 time of the survey, and it was stated that the water might fall to 

 the extent of a foot. 



Loch Laoghal contains two deep basins, the larger and deeper in 

 the northern portion of the loch, and the smaller and shallower 

 towards the head of the loch, separated by a shoaling of the bottom 

 about 2^ miles from the foot of the loch, where there is a slight 

 constriction in the outline. The 50-feet con tour-line is continuous, and 

 encloses an area about 4 miles in length, extending from quite close 

 to the northern end to within half a mile from the south-western end. 

 There are two 100-feet basins : the smaller one approaches to within 

 less than a mile from the head of the loch, and is three-quarters of a 

 mile in length, the maximum depth observed therein being 137 feet, 

 about 1J miles from the south-west end; the larger one is over 2 miles 

 in length, and approaches to within about 250 yards from the northern 

 end, enclosing the deepest part of the loch. The 1 50-feet area is about 

 1J miles in length, and distant about a quarter of a mile from the 

 northern end. The 200-feet area is nearly three-quarters of a mile in 

 length, distant less than half a mile from the northern end. The 

 longitudinal section on the map shows how rapidly the water deepens 

 on proceeding from the northern end along the central line of the loch, 

 while the opposite end of the loch is comparatively shallow and the 

 slope of the bottom there gentle; it also shows the considerable rise 



