OP THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 845 



be reached on foot. The east coast is hold and rocky, and is pene- 

 trated by arms of the sea, one of which (Locheport) all but succeeds 

 in bisecting the island. The coast-lines of these sea-lochs are un- 

 usually intricate, there being, it is said, several hundred miles of 

 coast measured by the Admiralty surveyors in Loch Maddy alone. 

 The most fertile portion of the island is the somewhat narrow belt 

 that extends along the west coast, where the fertility is largely due 

 to the presence of shell sand. The major part of the island, how- 

 ever, is desolate in the extreme, the rocky ridge of Beinn Ebhal 

 resembling in character the grey and weathered mountains of 

 Harris, and the lower grounds vividly recalling the brown sombre 

 moorlands of Lewis. There are no streams worthy of the name. 



2. Geological Structure. — Gneiss and its varieties form as usual 

 the solid substratum of North Uist, with occasional intrusions of 

 basalt. The general strike of the beds continues much the same 

 throughout the greater part of the island, the dip being towards 

 north-east in the districts north of Locheport. In the south and 

 east there is a good deal of contortion and confusion, and the dip is 

 sometimes north-west, while now and again the beds approach 

 horizontality. In Beinn Ebhal there is a peculiar schist, which in 

 places approaches the character of c^-slate. Macculloch describes 

 a number of peculiar metamorphic rocks as occurring in parts of the 

 east-coast mountain-range, which we did not visit. These some- 

 times assumed the character of a " lead-coloured compact felspar," a 

 " siliceous schist," a " felspar-porphyry," and now and again passed 

 into granite, hornblende-schist, and gneiss. "We did not see any of 

 these nondescript rocks in situ ; but many boulders of them occur in 

 the till of the low grounds, and are scattered over the district to the 

 north of Cairnish. 



3. Glaciation. — The most intensely glaciated part of North Uist 

 is beyond question the rocky ridge that extends along the east coast. 

 The hills in the west are also well rounded ; but in the central low 

 grounds the rock is for the most part obscured below till and peat, 

 although innumerable ice-worn hummocks and tors of gneiss peer 

 through the superficial covering. 



Between Leacali and Weaver Point the hills that face the sea are 

 ice-worn all over and in the usual direction. The bedding of the 

 gneiss hereabouts is very obscure. Between Loch Maddy and 

 Locheport the hills rise to upwards of 900 feet, and are also highly 

 glaciated from base to summit. They present a sloping surface to 

 the Minch, and a steep face to the interior, and are as destitute of 

 soil and verdure as the bleakest mountains of Harris. Beinn Ebhal 

 and the hills in its vicinity are ice-worn in the same manner, the 

 grey rounded rocks having evidently been smoothed off from the 

 direction of the Minch. 



In the Crogaire range, which attains a height of about 600 feet, 

 and rises on the west coast near Bhalacui, we found the north-west 

 direction holding equally true, the striae on different parts of the 

 hills pointing W. 12° N., W. 15° 3ST., W. 20° N., W. 35° N., and 

 W. 40° N. Peighinn-mhor (621 feet) in the north is glaciated in 



