RAMBLES OP A GEOLOGIST. 293 



the course of the Frith, should have the effect here, and no- 

 where else, of raising two vast mounds, each a full mile and 

 a quarter in length, with an average breadth of from two to 

 five furlongs, is by no means very apparent. Certainly the 

 present tides of the Frith could not have formed them, nor 

 could they have been elevated to their present average height 

 of ten or twelve feet over the flood-line in a sea standing at 

 the existing level. If they in reality originated in this cause, 

 it must have been ere the latter upheavals of the land or re- 

 cessions of the sea, when the great Caledonian Valley existed 

 as a narrow ocean sound, swept by powerful currents. Upon 

 another and entirely different hypothesis, these flat promon- 

 tories have been regarded as the remains, levelled by the 

 waves, and gapped direct in the middle by the tide, of a vast 

 transverse morain of the great valley, belonging to the same 

 glacial age as the lateral morains some ten or fifteen miles 

 higher up, that extend from the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Inverness to the mansion-house of Dochfour. But this hypo- 

 thesis, like the other, is not without its difficulties. Why, for 

 instance, should the promontories be a mile awry ? There is, 

 however, yet another mode of accounting for their formation, 

 which I am not in the least disposed to criticise. 



They were constructed, says tradition, through the agency 

 of the arch-wizard Michael Scott. Michael had called up the 

 hosts of Faery to erect the cathedral of Elgin and the cha- 

 nonry kirk of Fortrose, which they completed from founda- 

 tion to ridge, each in a single night, committing, in their 

 hurry, merely the slight mistake of locating the building in- 

 tended for Elgin in Fortrose, and that intended for Fortrose 

 in Elgin ; but, their work over and done, and when the ma- 

 gician had no further use for them, they absolutely refused to 

 be laid ; and, like a posse of Irish labourers thrown out of 

 a job, came thronging round him, clamouring for more em- 

 ployment. Fearing lest he should be torn in pieces, a ca- 



