144 MR. E. HULL ON THE VESTIGES OF EXTINCT 



The wild district of Inverness -shire and Ross -shire 

 remains yet to be described as far as its glacial history is 

 concerned. From what we know of the adjoining regions, 

 however, we may surmise that its long channel-shaped 

 valleys and arms of the sea, stretching from the coasts far 

 into the mountains, must have presented a series of physical 

 conditions very similar to that of Norway, where the gla- 

 ciers appear to have descended into the sea during the 

 glacial period. * The phenomena of Sutherlandshire 

 appear to have forced such an analogy on the mind of 

 Sir E,. Murchison, when lately exploring this region. He 

 says : " The spectator who, ascending the summit of Ben 

 Stack, looks westward, observes between him and the sea 

 of Scourie Bay a countless quantity of small loughs and 

 tarns interspersed among the hollows of this brown-clad 

 barren waste. On descending to examine the lower tract, 

 he finds the surface frequently rounded off and polished 

 like the roches moutonnees of the Alps ; and observing 

 numerous strise usually divergent from the central moun- 

 tains, and following the lines occupied by the principal 

 lakes or maritime fiords, he can have no doubt that, in 

 the glacial period the north-west of Scotland must have 

 been very much in the present state of Greenland, as de- 

 scribed by Rink : i.e. the central mountains occupied by 

 snow and ice, from which vast glaciers are protruded to 

 the lateral fiords or bays.^^f 



Glacial vestiges are no less marked over the rugged and 

 inhospitable island of Skye. Professor J. Forbes has 

 carried his observations across from the Alps and Scandi- 

 navia to this remote region of Britain, and, in referring 

 especially to the valley of Cornisk, states that "the grooves 

 and strise are as well marked, as continuous, and as strictly 



* See Professor J. Forbes' Travels in Nortvay, and PMnomenes d^ erosion 

 en Norvege, par M. Horbye. 



f Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xt, p. 361. 



