in Scotland and Parts of England. 249 



these quartz carapaces, as they may he called, are what has 

 protected the hills from the utter demolition and removal 

 which have befallen the matter once filling the great inter- 

 vals between them. 



Now, in this range of hills, there are phenomena of smooth- 

 ing, striation, and detrital accumulations, which can only be 

 accounted for on the supposition of there having been, be- 

 sides a district glaciation in the valleys, like that of the Lake 

 Country, an earlier general glaciation which has passed 

 over the backs, if not the very summits of the hills. 



The valley in which Loch Assvnt lies, extending up into a 

 spacious bosom of high ground inclosed by the summits of 

 Ben Uie and Glasvean, has been the seat of a glacier origin- 

 ating in that bosom, and which had swept out to sea at Loch 

 Inver and Rhu Stor. We see all along this course, smoothed 

 rocks, with striae in the line of the valley. In the higher 

 parts, are moraines, one of them forming the barrier of a 

 little lake. In the middle part, about Loch Assynt, are 

 accumulations of moraine matter : while along the gneissic 

 platform, towards Rhu Stor, are examples of long ridges, 

 with the stoss seite to the east, and a lee side to west, at- 

 tended by gatherings of moraine matter in the lee, containing, 

 with many masses of the gneiss, some of the red sandstone, 

 which may be presumed to have been brought from the skirts 

 of Cuineag. When we go onward to the low patch of sand- 

 stone on the coast at Stor, we find fragments of the gneiss 

 carried over it, still confirming a westerly movement at this 

 place. 



At the back or north side of the elevated ridge formed by 

 Ben Uie and Glasvean, there is another valley called Glen 

 Coul, which runs out to the westward, and is partly filled by 

 the estuary of Kyle Skou. This has likewise been the seat 

 of a local glacier, as appears from similar proofs ; but it has 

 been on a smaller scale, not having had such a spacious field 

 for the collection of the proper material. 



So much for the glaciation of this district, where there are 

 bosoms amongst the hills and valleys running out from them, 

 appropriate seats of local glaciers. But on the summits and 

 high slopes of the hills, and on the portions of the gneissic 



