418 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



especial care to conduct the line at an elevation considered to be beyond the reach of 

 injury from floods. " The rocks and recesses of the wooded banks, and the little grassy 

 slopes, were covered in a wild way with many thousand shrubs, of all kinds, especially 

 with laurels, rhododendrums, azaleas, lilacs, and a profusion of roses, which were thriving 

 vigorously, and beginning to bear blossoms, whilst the rocks were covered with the different 

 saxifrages, hung with all sorts of creepers, and enamelled with a variety of garden 

 flowers, all growing artlessly, as if sown by the hand of nature. The path was therefore 

 considered to be not unworthy of the exquisite scenery through which it led ; but the 

 flood of the 3d and 4th of August left not one fragment of it remaining, from one end to 

 the other. Not a tree, or shrub, or flower, or piece of soil, nay, or of moss or lichen, is 

 to be seen beneath that boldly and sublimely sketched line of flood, that appears on 

 either side, and from end to end of these rocks, like the awful handwriting of God on 

 the wall ! " Principal Baird, then on his way to Relugas, called to the post-boy to stop 

 as he was crossing the Divie Bridge, that he might enjoy the view of the scenery : but 

 " Na, na. Sir," was the reply, " these are ower kittle times to be stopping on brigs ! " 



The difference in the condition of Relugas immediately before and after being subjected 

 to the action of the flood remarkably illustrates the tremendous power with which the Divie 

 rushed down its beautiful glen. Its sloping banks were converted into perpendicular 

 walls, and a mass of rock appears in the mid -channel which before was at the side of the 

 stream. The offices of the house, originally more than fifty yards from the water edge, 

 and forty feet in perpendicular height above its level, were within a yard of the crumbling 

 precipice. The Divie was before remarkable for the depth of its pools, but owing to the 

 accumulations of sand and gravel brought into its bed, these were so completely obliterated, 

 that, for many weeks afterwards, a dog might have walked down its whole course, from 

 Edenkillie Church to the Findhorn, without difficulty. The swimming pool at Relugas had 

 a depth of sixteen feet of water ; but a deposit of gravel twenty feet deep was laid in it, 

 changing the pool into a shallow, the bottom of which was four feet higher than the former 

 surface of the water. " The whole scene," remarks the proprietor, while enacting, " had an 

 air of unreality about it that bewildered the senses. It was like some of those wild melo- 

 dramatic exhibitions where nature's operations are out -heroded by the mechanist of a 

 theatre, and where mountains are thrown down by artificial storms. Never did the 

 unsubstantially of all earthly things come so perfectly home to my conviction." What 

 transpired in this neighbourhood may be taken as a sample of the changes that were 

 produced through the wide extent of country reached by the waters of the flood. At 

 Loch-na-mhron, a small lake, with a swampy island in the centre, a current drove into it 

 with such force as to undermine and tear up the island, and carry it in mass to the 

 opposite shore, where it was left stranded upon the bank. We have a record of remark- 

 able transitions at a point of the river Nethey, extremely interesting to the geologist, the 

 work of successive floods occurring during the interval of about a hundred years. A 

 Company once were pounding iron-ore with their ponderous hammers, moved by active 

 machinery, in its bed. These actors disappeared, and the river soon obliterated all traces 

 of them and of their works, by filling up its channel there with rounded masses of stone 

 mingled with gravel, upon which its waters were compelled to seek another bed consider- 

 ably to the westward. But flood succeeded flood; and the quieter portions of each 

 successive inundation spread over the ground, where, by degrees, they deposited a deep 

 and fertile soil, forming a rich piece of land, the surface of which was six or eight feet 

 above the level of the ground the works of the Company had occupied. The greater part 

 of this beautiful flat was soon subjected to tillage ; and, the seeds of some neighbouring 

 alder trees finding their way into a portion of it, a grove speedily made its appearance. 

 The trees grew till they became tall and majestic, and agricultural labour went on, till the 



