836 THE BKITISH ISLES. 



bone of all Scotland, rrotuberanccs of g-runite rising into domes above the 

 Silurian strata abound in them, and extend eastward to the German Ocean, whose 

 waves wash the foot of the granitic promontory of Buchan Ness. 



The mountains which rise beyond the deep and narrow Glcnmore are known as 

 the Northern Highlands. Ben Attow (4,000 feet), their culminating summit, is 

 inferior in height to Ben Nevis, but they do not yield to the Grampians in wildness 

 of aspect. Even in the Alps we meet few sites so severely melancholy as are the 

 Highland glens of Ross and Sutherland. In the Alps we have at least the bright 

 verdure of the meadows, and at an inferior elevation dark pine woods ; but most of 

 the Scotch mountains are covered with sombre-coloured greyish heather and 

 peat ; black mountain streams run down the narrow glens ; and the mists, creeping 

 along the mountain sides, alternately hide and reveal the crests of the rocks, which, 

 suddenly seen through the vapour, loom forth like phantoms, only to sink back 

 ati-ain into nothingness." The very solitude has something formidable about it. 

 The earth appears to be void of life. From every summit the eye embraces sheets 

 of water winding between avenues of rocks, against the foot of which we can 

 even occasionally hear the waves beating. From some of the promontories we 

 look down a sheer precipice of 300 feet upon the foaming waves lashing their foot. 

 Cape Wrath, which forms the north-western angle of Scotland, is one of those 

 superb headlands invariably surrounded by the foam of the sea. Duncansby 

 Head, the other angle of the peninsula, is less abrupt ; but near it, in the midst of 

 the waves, a few isolated rocks rise like obelisks. 



Leipoldt estimates the mean height of Scotland, including the Lowlands, at 

 1,250 feet, and probably this is not excessive, for the plains are few, and those in 

 the north are of small extent.* Excepting Strathmore, the north-eastern extension 

 of the plain of the Forth, the only level parts of Northern Scotland capable of 

 cultivation are to be found on both sides of Moray Firth and in the peninsula of 

 Caithness, to the north-east. These plains belong to a geological formation different 

 from that of the Grampians, for they are composed of old red sandstone. But though 

 cultivable plains are limited in extent, there exist vast stretches of undulating 

 moorland, gradually rising to heights of many hundred feet, and through which 

 we may wander for miles without meeting with a tree or human habitation. 

 Formerlv nearly all the Highland valleys were covered with forests, which extended 

 also up the mountain sides, and several etymologists are of opinion that Caledonia 

 simply means "forest." Near Balmoral, in the upper valley of the Dee, the 

 trunks of pines have been dug up from the peat at an elevation of 2,460 feet above 

 the sea-level. There now survive only miserable remnants of these ancient woods, 

 for since the Middle Ages all the old forests have been either cut down or burnt, 

 on account of their harbouring wolves, boars, and outlaws. On the conclusion of 

 the Highland wars, as many as 24,000 woodmen were employed at a time 

 in destroying the forests.f Nearly all the trees now in the valleys have been 



* According to a careful computation made at the Ordnance Survey Office, the mean height of Perth 

 and Clackmannan is 1,144 feet ; that of Banffshire, 965 feet ; and that of Aberdeen, 875 feet. 

 T John Wilson; Keltie, " History of the Scottish Highlands." 



