23b FLORA OF ARRAJT. 



country is occupied by undulating granite mountains, seldom, 

 except at Glen Catacol, assuming forms of sublimity or 

 beauty, and clothed with no vegetation beyond the grass and 

 heather that grow among the slowly-decomposing blocks of 

 gray granite with which the ground is strewed for miles. 

 Such is the aspect of the country bleak, wild, unvaried 

 from Loch Ranza to Loch lorsa and Dougrie, where the 

 slate and old red sandstone formations succeed the harsher 

 granite, and subside with gentle declivities into the alluvial 

 plain through which the Mauchrie Water finds its way to the 

 sea. Despite what has been said of the botanical attractions 

 of Brodick, there is no district in Arran that will better 

 repay the trouble of a visit than the south coast, from Slao- 

 dridh to Whiting Bay. Without any of the alpine grandeur 

 of the north, it has many striking beauties of its own smiling 

 little bays, steep green banks, and bold cliffs of basaltic rock, 

 porphyry, or claystone, jutting far out among the waves, 

 or running in tall colonnades along the shore; seaward there 

 is the wide expanse of glorious blue, with the magnificent 

 pinnacle of Ailsa full in front ; beyond all, closing the distant 

 horizon, the gleaming cliffs of Ayrshire and the far-off coast 

 of Ireland. It is a delightful shore to wander along slowly, 

 searching and prying for rarities in the salt-marsh by the 

 water's brink, or up some leafy gorge through which the 

 streamlet from the hills forces its seaward way, forgetting 

 the world without and all its cares, delivered from the 

 dominion of dusty roads, and the necessity of getting home 

 in time for dinner. Let the naturalist take up his quarters 

 in the neat little inn that lies nestling in its snug little 

 hollow at Lag; there he may pass happy days in exploring 

 that solitary shore, and at night pull out into the deep, and 

 taste the unwonted pleasures of sea-fishing. 



The mountains at the head of Glen Sannox will be found 

 richer in alpine plants than Goatfell, though scarcely equalling 

 it in height. Yet even their flora must appear scanty and 

 uninteresting to one who has botanized over the ranges of the 



