PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



penetrates the smallest interstices of one's garments, and which 

 there appears to be no possibility of keeping out. 



The tale of these sandhills is a strange one. They appear to 

 perform, as it were, an enforced and continuous circular migra- 

 tion, under the influence of three distinct agents, viz., waves 

 and tides, wind, and the river Findhorn. The waves and tides of 

 the Moray Firth first formed them ; the wind then drifted them to 

 the eastward ; the river Findhorn arrested them, bearing the par- 

 ticles again far out to sea, for the waves and tides again to play 

 with — and so the tale runs on. 



To arrest this whelming easterly drift, the late Mr. Gregor of 

 Forres — the well-known arboriculturist and seedsman — recom- 

 mended the experiment of planting upon the estate of Dalvey. 

 As originally laid out, these plantations were not of great extent ; 

 but, as predicted by Mr. Gregor, have self-sown many miles of 

 the sandhills and lioUows from the westward to the eastward, an 

 area now of some six miles in length by three in width, having 

 covered the former dreary waste of sand. The woods were first 

 planted about 1850, or a little earlier; and there seems to be little 

 doubt they will continue to advance, and in due course of years 

 clothe the remaining six or seven miles between their present 

 outskirts and the mouth of the Findhorn. People now living 

 can remember an uninterrupted stretch of sand-dunes all the way 

 between Nairn and Findhorn. In a couple of decades the older 

 first-planted trees will become valuable timber, and be about sixty 

 years of age. Viewing the sandhills from the verge of the forested 

 portion in the west, from near the shore opposite the Old Bar, it 

 is interesting to observe the straggling vanguard of the pines, and 

 the first tufts of bent grass reaching out from the edge of the 

 wood. 



These interminable wastes of sand do not usually present 

 good subjects for photography. Their dazzling yellow colour 

 and vast wavy outlines, scarcely distinguishable against one 

 another, or against a clear sky, are like recurring billows of 

 ocean or great Pacific rollers. All shadows lost save from the 

 passing clouds, the sterile featurelessness, vast monotonous 

 distances, and far away backgrounds, all combine to puzzle 



