372 ON THE SANDS OF COUBINE. 



other plants, which grow readily in sand, should be, from 

 time to time, strewed over the Mavieston Hills. The 

 seeds of the Arundo arenaria are not always to be had ; 

 but plants might easily be procured in abundance, and 

 be dibbled into the sand-hills. The circumstance of great 

 accumulations of sand having of late disappeared from 

 Coubine, has given rise to the expectation, that the ba- 

 rony is at no distant period to become again serviceable 

 to man. By cutting off fresh supplies from Mavieston, 

 this period would be accelerated, and the proposed im- 

 provements rendered comparatively easy. 



There is at present little bent on Coubine. It is 

 chiefly confined to a range of knolls, which forms the 

 southern boundary of the sand, and protects the adjoin- 

 ing cultivated fields from its encroachments ; and yet, 

 notwithstanding the terrible calamity the inhabitants of 

 Moray brought upon themselves, by the pulling of bent, 

 this " bad practice 1 ' still prevails ; this plant being in no 

 other district of country which I have visited so gene- 

 rally employed for thatching cottars 1 houses, and other 

 economical purposes."" 



In the Outer Hebrides the effects of the sand-flood are 

 also considerable, as shewn in the following notice com- 

 municated by my intelligent assistant Mr Macgillivray. 



Sand-Flood in the Hebrides, and other parts of Scot- 

 land. 



" The bottom of the sea, along the whole west coast of 

 the Outer Hebrides, from Barray Head to the Butt of 

 the Lewis, appears to consist of sand. Along the shores 

 pf these islands this sand appears here and there, in 



