GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE ORKNEY 



ISLANDS AND DESCRIPTION OF 



THEIR PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



THE ORKNEY ISLANDS, separated from the mainland of Scotland by 

 the Pentland Firth, lie between 58 41" and 59 24' north latitude, 

 and between 2 22' and 3 25' west longitude, thus extending over 

 an area of more than 2000 geographical miles. 



Including the Pentland Skerries, the number of inhabited 

 islands is twenty-nine, and the number of small islands, called 

 holms, covered with herbage fit for grazing purposes, is said to be 

 thirty-eight, besides the small half, or nearly entirely submerged 

 rocks, called Skerries, which have none. 



Shirreff in his General View of the Agriculture of the Orkney 

 Islands, published in 1814, gives the acreage of the whole group 

 of islands as about 384,000 acres, of which 84,000 were then 

 supposed to be in a productive state. 



With few exceptions, the whole coast-line of the islands is 

 rocky, the highest part being the well-known cliffs of Hoy on the 

 west and south-west. The average height of the sea-cliffs is 

 certainly higher on the west side than on the east, though there are 

 many places on the latter where they rise to a considerable altitude, 

 such as Copinsay, and parts of S. Eonaldsay. Quantities of sea- 

 fowl breed through all these heights ; where the ledges are small, 

 narrow, and bare, Guillemots, Kazorbills, and Kittiwakes have 

 taken possession, while the greener slopes are occupied by Herring 

 Gulls, mixed here and there with a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls. 

 Any extent of sandy beach is rare, though there are some 

 patches on the Mainland. By far the greatest extent of such 

 sea-board, however, is at Sanday, but all these sandy reaches are 

 situated either on the east side of the islands, or else in some shel- 

 tered bays well out of the reach of the heavy wash of the Atlantic. 



