14 Dr. Mac Culloch's Sketch of the 



sake of perspicuity I shall distinguish by the name of the Red hills, 

 a name very characteristic of their colour as contrasted with the livid 

 black of the Cuchullin, and excusable in as much as it is applied by 

 the natives to some of the principal hills of the group. I would 

 gladly have given the name of each individual, but I was unable to 

 procure them, no general surveys having been made, and the parti- 

 cular surveys of estates, either neglecting to notice them, or, like the 

 shepherds, differing so much in opinion as to lead to inextricable 

 confusion. Fortunately it is not material, as their uniformity of 

 structure is so great, that the description of one is nearly applicable 

 to the whole of the group. The general outline of these hills forms 

 a character as highly contrasted to that of the Cuchullin as are their 

 respective colours. In place of the lofty spires, the impending pre- 

 cipices and the almost unalterable rocks of those, we see in the Red 

 hills a continued succession of tame rounded outlines, the effect of a 

 decomposition which , has covered them with ruins and almost 

 every where concealed from view the natural rock. They also fall 

 far short of the Cuchullin in elevation. Those which are entirely 

 red, and which, as will be hereafter seen, consist of a syenitic rock, do 

 not approach, within many hundred feet, the height of the former, 

 and the loftiest of the group, among which that of Glamich takes 

 precedence, will be found to consist of a mixture of the syenitic rock, 

 and that clinkstone, which, as I shall hereafter show, constitutes a 

 portion of the mass of the Cuchullin. 



Comparing from the summits of any of the hills the general aspect 

 of the two groups, the spectator is inevitably struck with the different 

 powers of resistance which the two classes of rock offer to the efforts 

 of time, and looks forward perhaps to a distant day when the red 

 hills shall be levelled with the land below, while the Cuchullin shall 

 still lift its iron summit to the clouds. There is yet another charac- 



