362 



THE 13R1TISU ISLES. 



the heat and smoke of these dwellino-s are intolerable, but tlie former is said to favour 

 the laying of eggs.* Such are the abodes of most of the inhabitants of Lewis ! 

 Yet the claims to comfort have increased since the commencement of the nineteenth 

 century, and a porringer is no longer looked upon as a veritable curiosity. 



Topography. 

 Perthshire is eminently a border county, for whilst the whole of its north- 

 western portion is occupied by spurs of the Grampians, the south-eastern and 

 smaller section of the county lies within the Lowlands. The line which divides 

 the Silurian rocks of the Ilighlands from the red sandstone formation, spread over 



Fig. 179.— Perth. 

 Roale 1 : 120,000. 



2 Miles. 



Strathmore and the hilly region intervening between that vale and the Forth, is 

 drawn as with a ruler. It marks at once a phy.sical and an ethnical boundary, for 

 it nearly coincides with the line which separates the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders 

 from the men of Saxon tongue. In the south-east the Ochill and Sidlaw Hills 

 divide Perthshire from the maritime region, and it is through a gorge in these 

 rano-es of igneous rock that the Tay, the principal river of the county, finds its 

 ■way into the Firth of Forth. 



The Carse of Gower, a fertile alluvial tract extending along the northern shore 

 of the Firth of Tay, forms part of Perthshire, and within it lies the village of 

 ErroL Ahcrndhy, supposed to have been the capital of a Pictish kingdom, but 



* Anderson Smith, " Lcwisiana." 



