336 ' SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 
within the County of Aberdeen, 1696, is the earliest record and gives un- 
usually full information. From the data in this record maps have been 
prepared showing trades and the density and distribution of population 
a decade before the Union. The MSS. records in the National Library of 
Scotland for 1750 and 1755 and the 1793-99 list in the Statistical Account 
have been utilised, while for the period 1801-1931 the official decennial 
returns have been used. Data given in the Statistical Accounts, various 
MSS. and printed reports and parish histories have been used to augment 
the eighteenth-century material. 
The investigation shows that the highland parishes now have a scantietr 
population than in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This decrease 
is due as much to the higher scale of living as to the action of landlords. 
The areas of better agriculture show a peak in the middle of last century, 
followed by a decline, which, however, fails to bring the total below the 
1696 level. Urban centres such as Fraserburgh and Peterhead show a 
stupendous growth in the last two centuries, followed by an almost negligible 
decrease. ‘This may indicate that the saturation point of population has 
been reached with the present known means of subsistence fully developed. 
Mr. F. H. W. Green.—The distribution of settlements in the Moray Firth 
lowlands (9.50). 
The lowland coast of the Moray Firth is an area which is markedly 
distinct from the rest of Scotland in respect of its climate, and this, together 
with its remarkably well-defined topographic limits, suggests it as an obvious 
natural region. An attempt was therefore made to compare it in some 
detail with the other lowlands of the east coast, and, more especially, an 
analysis was made of its internal unity. 
A study of the distribution of settlements is perhaps the readiest way 
of approaching the problem. The settlements are of three main types : 
(1) Fishing settlements, of which several sorts may be distinguished. 
All the fishing activities, however, with the exception of the salmon fisheries, 
give rise to settlements which have remarkably little connection with the 
interior. ‘ Dual towns,’ such as Nairn or Cullen, emphasise the truth of 
this point especially well. 
(2) Market towns. Although such a town as Inverness occupies what 
is for more than one purpose an obvious site, some of the other regional 
centres do not show in their siting so clear a relationship to the factors of 
their physical environment. 
(3) Isolated agricultural settlements, which, though of several types, 
show a marked absence of nucleated villages. ‘The farming in the region, 
though varied, is predominantly arable, and reasons are advanced to explain 
the very even distribution of settlement within the limits of cultivation. 
A study of the latter, especially of the upper limit, forms a subject of con- 
siderable interest in itself, and an attempt has been made to understand the 
factors underlying the variations within the area. 
Mr. K. H. Huccins.—Geographical distribution of the early iron-smelting 
industry of Scotland (10.10). 
Of 40 ironworks in the midland valley, 10 were built prior to 1802 to 
smelt clayband ore with coke, the remaining 30 between 1825 and 1865 to 
smelt blackband ore with raw coal. Only 17 survived until 1921. 
