4 Dr. Mac "Culloch's Sketch of the 



than that which arises from the want of an accurate detailed map oif 

 its surface, its mountains, rivers, bays, and lakes ; data, without which 

 it is extremely difficult to give such particulars as could be desired 

 of the situations, boundaries, and connections of its several rocks ; 

 a difficulty too not a little increased by the utter impossibility of ob- 

 taining the vern:acular names from the natives, who are neither well 

 informed on the subject nor very well agreed in their application. 

 The want of ascertained distances and of fixed points of reference, 

 arising from the vacant state of many tracts and the loose manner 

 in which the Highlanders compute their miles, add not a little to 

 t^ie trouble of giving precise descriptions. 



If we may trust to the latitudes and longitudes laid down, and 

 they are the only documents on which we have to rely, the extreme 

 length of this island is about forty-five miles, and its extreme 

 breadth about twenty. Its form is that of an irregular parallelogram, 

 so much intersected by deep sea lochs that scarcely any point on its 

 surface is five miles distant from the sea. It is divided into geogra- 

 phical districts, which, as they bear some relation to the physical 

 divisions of its surface, and will be necessary points of reference ia 

 describing its structure, I shall here enumerate. 



Of these, the southernmost is the district and parish of Sleat, a 

 tract of moderate and irregular elevation, terminating in the high 

 group of mountains which approaches the main land, and which, in 

 conjunction with Glen Elg, forms the narrow passage of the inner 

 sound. This is bounded to the north by the parish of Strath, an 

 open irregular valley, intersecting the island from N.E. to S.W.^and 

 separating the before-mentioned district from the remainder of the 

 island,' more particularly from the group of mountains which occu- 

 pies its middle division. A tract of uneven land extends from 

 Broadford along the eastern shore to the eastera Loch Eynort, and 



