222 MR ALFRED HARKER ON 



Concerning the general orography and ' solid ' geology of central Skye a few words 

 will suffice in this place. The Cuillins are built essentially of a great laccolitic mass of 

 gabbro, enclosing patches of metamorphosed basaltic lavas and traversed by countless 

 dykes and sheets also of basic rocks. The main range, rising in many places more 

 than 3000 feet, has roughly the form of a semicircular arc, with its concavity to the 

 east. A lower branch ridge (Druim nan Ramh, etc.) runs S.E., enclosing the 

 basin of Coruisk with outlet south-eastward to the sea-loch Scavaig. Further east is 

 the Rlath-bheinn range, running nearly N. to S., which is also of gabbro, but is cut off 

 by Strath na Creitheach, which drains southward by Camasunary. The interior of the 

 northern Cuillins is drained by the Sligachan River,, which turns northward and finds 

 an outlet in the sea-loch Sligachan. East of Glen Sligachan is a range of hills 

 composed of granite and granophyre, the beginning of a tract of like rocks which 

 extends nearly to Broadford. These ' Red Hills ' are almost always less than 2500 feet 

 in altitude, and they have smooth rounded forms which contrast very markedly with 

 the bold peaks and acute ridge-lines of the Cuillins. Outside the two mountain-groups, 

 the central portion of Skye is built essentially of basalt, in the form of greatly eroded 

 plateaux rarely rising more than 1500 feet above sea-level. The older stratified rocks 

 (Torridonian and Jurassic), upon which these basalts rest, are exposed only in places 

 along the coast. The coast-line is highly irregular in outline, long sea-lochs running 

 up in some places almost or quite to the base of the mountains. 



It is greatly to be regretted that we have as yet no satisfactory map of the 

 Cuillins, the more so since what here follows deals in great part with the detailed 

 topography of the district. An accurate and carefully contoured map of this the finest 

 of all the mountain-groups of Britain would be eminently interesting to the physical 

 geographer. The original Ordnance Survey* was made at a time when much of the 

 mountain district was considered inaccessible ; and, although later issues embody 

 numerous corrections, they still leave much to be desired. Contour-lines are drawn 

 on the one-inch map only, and they cannot pretend to more than approximate 

 accuracy. 



(ii.) Independent Ice-Cap of the Skye Mountains. 



We proceed to a general view of the glaciation of the Cuillins and adjacent country, 

 as preparatory to a closer consideration of our special subject. What at once challenges 

 interest is the fact that the Skye mountains, at the stage of maximum glaciation, 

 sustained a small local ice-cap, round which the great Scottish ice-sheet flowed on 



* The maps illustrating the present paper are, Scotland (one-inch), sheets 70 and 71 ; Skye (six-inch), sheets 38, 39, 

 44, 45, 49, and 50. A reduced copy of the six-inch map of the Cuillins, with additional names and heights, is given 

 in No. 25 of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, issued January 1898. For some corrections of the toj>ography 

 of the ridges, see a rough sketch map by C. Pilkington, pub. 1890 (Manchester) ; also W. Douglas, S.M.G.J., vol. 

 iv. pp. 209-213, 1897 ; and A. Harkkr, ibid., vol. vi. pp. 1-13, 1900. 



