PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



85 



As we are on the subject of climate, it may not be out of place 

 to add a note upon that of Kingussie, which is the town farthest 

 removed from salt water, and therefore may in some respects be 

 looked upon as the antithesis of Forres. 



The valley is elevated 850 feet above the level of the sea, and 

 is in north lat. 57° 4", and west long. 4° 5". At 750 feet above the 

 sea, the mean temperature at 8 hours 51 minutes morning, from 1st 

 November 1838 to 1st November 1839 was 48° 77". — {Speyside 

 Guide, Forres, 1852, p. 158.) 



So much then for the climatology and normal state of the 

 weather of the area. But we ought not to pass on without some 

 slight mention of unusual or abnormal incidents having dis- 

 tinct bearing upon the fauna and flora, and physical conditions 

 generally. 



The great irruption of the sand-drift of the Culbin and 

 Nairn sands and coast we have still to speak of, and its pro- 

 gress afterwards. The great floods of 1829 and 1832, causing 

 infinitude of damage, are duly recorded and reported upon in 

 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's most deeply interesting volume,^ 

 often referred to (see Knox's Autumns on the SjJey, p. 95). 

 In our faunal lists, here and there will be found some slight 

 references to the effects of these vast floods upon bird and 

 animal life. The notices are only brief, because we have no 

 actual proofs of direct change, except the destruction of certain 

 species, such as Rabbits, Hares, probably Badgers and Moles and 

 Hedgehogs : and among birds the strange disappearance, after 

 these August floods, of Chaffinches and Sparrows, at and about the 

 district of Ballindalloch and Aberlour ; and, says Dick Lauder : — 

 * the elements raved with unabated fury, so that not a bird could 

 dare to wing the air.* Sir Thomas relates that at Garmouth alone 

 — i.e. about the mouths of Spey, — among the carcases of animals, 

 there were ' millions of dead Hares and Rabbits.' Even allowing 

 for descriptive licence, Sir Thomas would not have used the 



1 A volume is now, we understand, in preparation, entitled Floo(h of the 

 Nineteenth Century, at the office of tlie Northern Chronicle, Inverness, which it ia 

 presumed will treat, monographically, the subject of these latest great floods. 

 With this volume in view we think it unnecessary here to introduce our own 

 notea on this sul)ject further than we have already done. 



