98 ON SEA-SIDE PLANTING. 
the ordinary driftings are intercepted by the river Findhorn, 
and the sand is carried out to sea and forms a bar, where the 
in-shore tidal current, running to the westward, carries it in 
that direction, again to be thrown on shore and blown east- 
ward; thus to some extent it forms an endless circuit. 
Along the southern extremities of these sand-hills, at the dis- 
tance of several miles from the sea, are beaches of rolled 
boulders from twelve to twenty feet above the tide-mark. 
Similar beaches exist in many parts along the south side of 
the Moray Firth, and these, with the accumulation of sand, 
are supposed to be due to the effects of the extraordinary 
inundations of the German Ocean in the thirteenth century 
recorded by Buchanan and Fordoun. But although large 
mountains of sand are said to have been formed at this time 
along the sea-shore, called the hiils of Maviston, yet it must 
have been long after this period before they spread out, on the 
cultivated land to anything like their present extent. In the 
beginning of the fifteenth century the estate of Culbin was in 
the possession of the Kinnaird family, and their descendants 
continued to prosper on it for many generations. After the 
middle of the seventeenth century the estate is known to 
have consisted of sixteen very regular and compact farms, 
so famous for their fertility that the district had acquired 
the distinguished appellation of “the Granary of Moray.” 
The rental of the estate at that time was as follows :—Money 
rent, £2720 Scots (more than equal to sterling money now), 
640 bolls of wheat, 640 bolls of bear, 640 bolls of oats, and 
640 bolls of oatmeal. Such a rental now would be worth 
about £7000 sterling per annum. Besides, the family had 
valuable fishings in the Findhorn, which then ran westward 
through the estate, but its course, having been drifted up, 
was turned into its present channel during the general, 
calamity. Towards the close of the seventeenth century the 
then proprietor applied to Parliament to be exempted from 
the payment of cess, because his estate, which twenty years 
before was one of the most considerable in Moray, with an 
area of about 5000 acres, was nearly all covered with sand, 
