I. TOPOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS. 3 
groups. At the same time, it was sought to obviate the prac- 
tical inconvenience of new sections and new names as far as 
possible. A close adherence to county-boundaries was conse- 
quently resolved upon, for a basis of all the new divisions. To 
this rule some slight exceptions will be found, where small 
portions of one county lie apart, being imbedded or insulated 
within the outline limits of other adjaccut counties. 
Provinces. — In forming the intermediate sections, by grouping 
the counties, a wavy middle line was first traced from the south 
coast of England northwards into the Highlands of Scotland; this 
line corresponding with the boundaries of counties, and being 
traced in that course which would best divide the counties whose 
rivers flow to the eastern coasts, from those other counties the 
waters of which are emptied into the western seas or ocean. These 
two longitudinal portions of the island were then transversely sub- 
divided into Provinces, or groups of counties which together con- 
stitute the basin of a principal river, or have some other physical 
peculiarity in common. The mesial line was not continued 
northward of Inverness, where Scotland becomes very narrow, 
and where counties extend from the east to the west coast, as 
Ross and Sutherland. The wide county of Inverness itself, also 
extending from east to west, is bisected by the longitudinal line ; 
the eastern portion being thus divided from the western portion ; 
its two portions being severally named East-Inverness and West- 
Inverness, abbreviated into Easterness and Westerness. The 
small eastern county of Nairn is included with Easterness ; while 
that detached part of Argyle, situate on the north-west side of 
Loch Linhe, is taken along with Westerness. 
In this manner eighteen Provinces, or groups of counties, have 
been traced on the map of Britain; and though still being arbi- 
trary or conventional partitions of the surface, through conforming 
with county boundaries, they will be found on examination to be 
more natural sections of the island, than are the counties them- 
selves. It will be observed that any needful new names are given 
to the provinces in accordance with some physical peculiarity or 
character, usually that of a principal river basin, as Thames or 
