LOCH ASSYNT 275 



LOCH ASSYNT, 



From which the Inver flows, receives the waters of several small 

 surrounding lochs, and at its head the Loanan river descends in a 

 rather steep course from a hill loch called Loch Awe, a very shallow 

 little loch with a maximum depth of about 7 feet. The descent is 

 some 300 feet, but the last 3 miles or so are useful spawning ground 

 for fish from the loch below. Salmon run up the Loanan into Loch 

 Awe and are caught there in the season. The main road from 

 Lairg to Assynt by Oykell Bridge passes close to Loch Awe and 

 follows the course of the Loanan to Inchnadamph, the well-known 

 fishing resort which stands at the head of Loch Assynt. 



At the west end of the loch the ground is comparatively low, but 

 a splendid amphitheatre of hills surround the remainder of the loch. 

 Quinag on the north, Glasven, Ben More, Coniveall, Breabag, and 

 Canisp, are all conspicuous, Ben More and Coniveall (Coinnembeall) 

 being, respectively, 3273 and 3234 feet. 



The general trend of the loch is west-north-west and east-south- 

 east, while the western end bends at right angles to the south where 

 Loch Assynt Lodge stands on the north shore. A recent writer, 

 who does not seem to have measured distances at all, describes the 

 loch as 10 miles long. Perhaps a boatman rowed him up it against 

 the wind and thought so. An eminent guide-book says it is 8 miles 

 long. The officers of the Ordnance Survey mapped it, and the more 

 recent Bathymetrical Survey reports that " It is 64 miles in length, 

 and nearly a mile in maximum breadth, the mean breadth being 

 half a mile or 8 per cent, of the length. The waters cover an area 

 of nearly 2000 acres, or over 3 square miles, and it drains an area 

 fourteen times greater, or over 43 square miles. . . . 



" The floor of Loch Assynt is rather irregular . . . this is more 

 especially the case in the half lying to the north of the medial line. 

 The 100 feet contour running along the northern shore is of a most 

 sinuous character, quite independent of the shore line, and is in 

 striking contrast to the same contour running along the southern 

 shore. . . . The 50 feet, 100 feet, and 150 feet basins are con- 

 tinuous areas, while the area over 200 feet in depth is cut up into 

 four portions, and that over 250 feet in depth into three portions. 

 The 50 feet basin extends practically from one end of the loch to 

 the other; the 100 feet basin stretches from 200 yards from the 

 eastern end to beyond Kudh'-an-Alt-toir, where the loch bends 

 sharply to the south-west." 



