KYLE OF SUTHERLAND 207 



pass, and also the waters of the other rivers of the district which lie 

 to the westward. It is a sort of bottle-neck to the upper estuary, 

 and the key to the whole district so far as the ascent of salmon to 

 fresh waters is concerned. 



From Bonar Bridge the upper estuary continues for four miles 

 westward past the junction of the Shin. The high railway viaduct 

 crosses to Invershin Station, about a mile below the junction. After 

 passing the mouth of the Shin the flat tidal channel still continues 

 away inland for about seven miles to the ford between Oykell Lodge 

 and Eosehall ; but this stretch is usually considered as the lowest 

 part of the Oykell, although in certain maps the Kyle, as low as 

 Bonar Bridge, is marked as the mouth of the Oykell. The total 

 length of the tidal waters in the Kyle and Firth is, therefore, about 

 27 miles. The separation between the counties of Sutherland and 

 Eoss is the line of the river Oykell and of the Kyle. The Shin and 

 Cassley are, therefore, Sutherland rivers ; the Carron is in Eoss- 

 shire, while the left bank of the Oykell is in the former and the 

 right bank in the latter. 



The district has ever been famous for its salmon, and this can be 

 sufficiently understood when the great extent of beautiful spawning 

 ground is realised. With the exception of the river Shin, which is 

 rocky in almost all its short course, the rivers exhibit great 

 stretches of spawning ground, while the numerous smaller feeders, 

 which are of no great moment as angling streams, are of great 

 importance as spawning areas, such streams, for instance, as the 

 burns around Loch Merkland away at the head of Loch Shin, the 

 Einig, which enters the Oykell from the south near Oykell Bridge, 

 and, to a less degree, the Tirry, which enters Loch Shin from the 

 north near Larig. In those lonely hill regions the water is pure 

 from the wells of nature, and man cannot destroy very many fish, 

 either by fair means or foul, for man is a rather scarce creature 

 where there are no villages and the country is either under deer or 

 under sheep. 



If one regards the Kyle District broadly one notices that in con- 

 formity to the physical features of the glens at East Sutherland and 

 Eoss, the river courses, as one follows them downwards, present 

 long flattish stretches of considerable uniformity, followed by abrupt 

 falls. If an ellipse be drawn from a centre not far from Bonar 

 Bridge, touching the falls of Carron in the south and the falls of 

 Shin on the north, it will also touch the falls of Einig, Oykell, and the 

 lower falls of the Cassley. They are all in this rocky outcrop in its 



