NORTHEEN SCOTLAND. 337 



planted recently. Here and there, in the vicinity of the sumptuous mansions 

 of the owners of the land, the ancient forests have been partly replanted, but away 

 from them the eye meets nought but heather, peat, and naked rocks. 



'No Scottish mountain pierces the line of perennial snow ; but occasionally, 

 in hollows which the sun's rays penetrate but for a few hours in summer, the 

 snow remains during the whole of the year. The precipitation, which exceeds 

 6 feet on the higher summits of the Grampians, descends in the shape of snow 

 during a considerable portion of the year, and the winds pile up this snow in the 

 valleys in masses too considerable to melt away very quickly. The superabundant 

 moisture, which is not carried off by torrents or " waters " to the sea, is then sucked 

 up by the mosses which cover the sides of the valley, or fills the lochs which 

 occupy their bottom. Several of these water-laden peat mosses extend down the 

 opposite slopes of a plateau, and give birth to rivulets flowing in contrary direc- 

 tions. In countries formed of solid rocks such bifurcations are rare ; but they occur 

 frequently in regions like Scotland, where the rocks are covered with a thick 

 layer of peat saturated with water. The numerous breaches in the mountain 

 ranges account for this anastomosis between river basins. One of the most 

 remarkable of these transverse breaches is occupied by Loch Errocht, l}ing imme- 

 diately to the east of Ben Alder, a mountain over 3,000 feet in height. 



We have seen that the general direction of the mountain ranges, valleys, and 

 rivers of Scotland is from the south-west to the north-east ; but besides this, on a 

 closer examination of the surface of the land, we find that the rocks are scored in 

 parallel lines of remarkable regularity. It almost looks as if the whole country 

 had been carded like the fleece of a sheep. All the hills at the foot of the High- 

 lands and in the Lowlands have been planed to their very summits, and to this 

 planing must be ascribed their rounded form and smooth contours.* What 

 other agency can thus have changed the appearance of the mountains, if not that of 

 the glaciers which formerly covered the whole of the country, and whose drift 

 deposits and terminal moraines may still be traced in every vallej' descending 

 from the Grampians ? During the great ice age huge rivers of ice flowed down from 

 the mountains of Scotland. Passing over the hills, they cut away all inequalities 

 of the ground, and spread the débris over the plains : reaching the sea, they 

 sent adrift floating icebergs. According to whether a glacier was more or less 

 formidable, it deposited its terminal moraine at a more or less considerable distance 

 from its head, forming either banks and groups of islands in the arms of the sea, 

 or barriers across the valley. There is not a glen or a strath in all Scotland whose 

 streams were not arrested by one of these moraines, and pent up so as to form a 

 lake, whose level gradually rose until its waters were able to escape. These heaps 

 of glacial gravel, which lie across every river valley, and are sometimes concealed 

 beneath a bed of peat, whilst at others they form undulating hills covered with 

 verdure, are known as kaims. They are the eskers of Ireland, and the cisar of 

 Sweden. The stiff clays of the glacial epoch are called ti/l in Scotland, and are 

 the boulder clay of English geologists. 



* James Geikie, " The Great Ice Age." 

 131 



