Fiords, Loch Etive. 451 



156 feet. Loch Fyne, about eight miles below Inverary, 

 is 414 feet deep, and is very much shallower 15 miles 

 further down, while in Loch Etive, near Oban, the whole 

 theory is brought prominently before the eye, as shown 

 in the accompanying picture, fig. 95. 



The mouth of this sea loch or fiord at Connel 

 Ferry is so narrow, that it seems as if a stone might 

 almost be thrown across, but further up it spreads into a 

 noble sheet of water, and its length is about 20 miles, and 

 its greatest depth 456 feet. When the tide is up, on a 

 quiet day, all is still and unruffled from end to end ; 

 but as the tide falls the water gets troubled across the 

 mouth of the fiord, two rocky islets begin to appear, 

 and by-and-by, standing on the roche moutonnee in the 

 foreground, it becomes plain that a rocky barrier 

 traverses the fiord from side to side, over which the 

 outflowing sea falls with a roar that may be heard for 

 a mile or more. 1 If the region were raised for a few 

 feet, Loch Etive, by influx of rivers, would by degrees 

 become changed into a freshwater lake, like its 

 neighbouring tributary rock-bound basin Loch Awe, 

 which is 306 feet deep where deepest. Here then is 

 what may be called a demonstration of the glacial 

 origin of many rock-bound fiord basins, unless we can 

 persuade ourselves to believe that all the great fiords 

 of Scotland, Norway, Greenland, and North and South 

 America, were by some special operation upheaved at 

 their mouths, no matter how the inlets trend, so that 

 some day when these countries may be further elevated, 

 the fiords shall all be converted into inland rock-bound 

 freshwater lakes ! 3 



1 Coruisk in Skye is another case in point on a smaller scale. 



2 The Lakes of Maggiore and Como were once fiords. Long 



Q G 2 



