CHAPTER XIV. 



NOETHERN SCOTLAND. 



(The Counties of Perth, Forfak, Kixcaedine, Aberdeen, Banff. Elgin, Nairn, Inverness, Eoss 

 AND Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney, Shetland, and Argvll.) 



General Features. 



HIS is a portion of the British Islands which, compared with England 

 and Southern Scotland, is but thinly populated. In its great geo- 

 graphical features, its relief, contours, and coast-line, it resembles 

 Scandinavia rather than any other part of Great Britain. If 

 the sea once more flooded the broad plain stretching from the 

 Forth to the Clyde, its character of insularity would hardly become more apparent 

 than it is now. Upper Caledonia is, in fact, a large island, with smaller islands 

 for its satellites. 



Far more elevated in the mean than England, nearly the whole of it is 

 occupied by mountains ; and these mountains form ranges, which extend almost 

 without an exception from the south-west to the north-east. In the south this 

 Highland region is bounded by the Strathmore, or " Great Valley," through which 

 the plain of the Forth is extended north-eastward towards Montrose and Stone- 

 haven. The valleys of the Dee, Doveran, Spey, Findhorn, and Nairn run parallel 

 with that plain towards the German Ocean, and the remarkable fissure of 

 Glenmore, which connects Loch Eil with the Inverness Firth, extends in the 

 same direction. There are few fissures in Europe which in rigidity of contour can 

 compare with this "Great Glen" of Scotland, which, 100 miles in length, joins 

 the Atlantic to the German Ocean. If the Dee were to rise but 100 feet, the 

 northern extremity of Scotland would be separated from the remainder of the 

 Highlands, and the chain of lakes and rivers now occupying the glen converted 

 into a narrow strait of the sea of uniform width. The ocean would then follow 

 the path apparently traced for it in the Caledonian Canal. The execution of that 

 work was greatly facilitated by the existence of the river jSTess, which falls into 

 Inverness Firth, and Loch Ness, which occupies the centre of tha isthmus. All the 

 engineers had to do was to excavate a canal 22 miles in length, and to furnish it 



