42 ON THE PARALLEL ROADS 



and narrow ravine, the river again puts on the peaceful charac- 

 ter, and flows in a broad channel through the Meadows of 

 Inch. After its union with the Roy, it proceeds, (as I have 

 already noticed), across a hollow and shelving basin in the 

 open country, somewhat more than two miles in extent, till 

 the banks again approaching, and closing in on the river, it a 

 third time, and on a still more magnificent scale, exhibits the 

 deep ravine, and the waterfalls and rapids, which so often ar- 

 rest the attention of the traveller who crosses it at High- 

 bridge. The shores of these three successive minor valleys, 

 which may be said to be included in the larger, are what I have 

 numbered 5, 6, and 7 in the map. 



I must now, again, take up the consideration of the course 

 of Shelf 4th, which having wound from Glen Roy around the 

 base of the hill of Crag-dhu, stretches very distinctly up the 

 smooth and even faces of the mountains on the north side of 

 Glen Spean, the bottom of the valley rising towards it as it 

 proceeds, until at last it approaches so near to it in eleva- 

 tion, that the Engineer of the Parliamentary Commissioners 

 has actually availed himself of the line of shelf, to construct 

 on it a part of the great new Loch Laggan Road. As the shelf 

 approaches within two miles of Loch Laggan, it begins to be 

 identified with the upper bounding line of the flats of deep al- 

 luvial earth and clay, through which the river Spean flows 

 from the lake. It is then to be traced all up the north shore 

 of Loch Laggan, being only a few feet above the level of its 

 water, and in most places only a few yards from its margin ; 

 and running along the banks of the river Pattaig for about two 

 miles, it crosses that river at Muckul, on a level equal to that 

 of the summit-level of the bottom of that pass, and in such a 

 manner, that it is evident, if a body of water were raised to the 

 level of the shelf, a stream would run from it, through the Pass of 



Muckul^ 



