PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



91 



still found to be progressing, and continuing even at the present 

 time.^ 



Findhorn is a typical Scotch fishing village, once very thriving, 

 and driving a good trade when the branch railway led down to it 

 from Forres. But since that line came to be abandoned, Findhorn 

 has resumed its former quiet fishing life, only the salmon-nets, 

 which are leased by Mr. Bisset, yielding much return in fish. 

 Findhorn stands on the right bank of the narrow entrance from 

 the sea to the Basin or Bay of Findhorn, practically the present 

 embouchure of the river Findhorn. 



On the occasions on which we have visited the Culbin sands 

 from the eastward we have driven down to Findhorn and returned 

 there in the evening, or, as elsewhere indicated, have driven down 

 to Kincorth and returned by Findhorn village, thence driving 

 back to Forres. Arriving at Findhorn on the occasion of our 

 earliest visit — June 1885, — a local fisherman ferried us over to 

 the eastern extremity of the Culbin sands, which stretch in con- 

 tinuation with the Nairn sands, from Nairn to Findhorn. Standing 

 on the summit of one of the highest of these sand-dunes, and 

 looking away inland, one sees tier over tier, ridge after ridge, of 

 dazzling sand, steeply sloping on the west sides, abruptly breaking 

 over still more steeply on the east sides, many without a trace of 

 vegetation, others scantily tufted with bent-grass — white and 

 blinding in the strong shimmering midsummer sun. When a 

 high wind blows over this desert of sand, eddies curl and crest 

 over their tops, whirling up miniature columns and lending claws 

 of sand^ giving a realistic picture of a vaster Asiatic * Simoom/ 



^ Amongst the antiquarian treasures found in the parish of Dyke and the 

 Culbin sands we can instance the following, seen by ourselves in the fine local 

 collection at Dyke Manse, the proi)erty of the Rev. Mr. M'Ewan : * Arrow-heads, 

 holy-water font from Pluscarden, celts, coins, broadsword, beads, hand-mills, 

 querns, old lateral hand stone-mill and stone of ditto, tinder-boxes, annula*, 

 curious water-worn stones, a few bronze axe-heads of two or three shapes, large 

 double-handed stone axe, flint and steel,' etc. etc., a collection well worthy of 

 inspection. In the Antiquarian Museum in Etlinburgh there is a very extensive 

 collection, expressly collected for the Society amongst the Culbin Hills, which is 

 also well worthy of inspection. 



- A descriptive ideal, only to be recognised by those who have stood and watched 

 the strange scene for hours, as Harvie-Brown has done on several occasions. 



