PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



95 



tops causes the extraordinary appearance of a vast succession of 

 sandfalls all over the ranges, falling over the crests, and again 

 piling up under the lee. Thus in a single day or night the ap- 

 parently permanent general features may become totally unre- 

 cognisable the one from the other. On the hummocks in the 

 hollows held by the roots of the bents, and among the lower 

 plateaus, the wind waving the wiry needle-pointed stems and 

 blades of bent grasses makes curious semicircles in the sand, these 

 points cutting deep compass-like markings around the centres. 

 This we have endeavoured to illustrate along with the sandfalls 

 and the footprints of the Sand-Grouse in our second volume under 

 the article upon that bird. 



The most characteristic as well as most extensive view of these 

 marvellous sand-dunes may be seen from the top of the highest 

 Culbin, or Kincorth Hill, looking away to sea over the Moray 

 Firth, with the distant background of the Ross-shire hills; but 

 from the same point d'appui a circular panorama of great expanse 

 and interest is visible. There is first the Moray Firth, dappled 

 with * cat's-paws ' and * white horses,' crisp and dark blue, and a vast 

 extent of coast-line extending from Burghead in the east to near 

 Fortrose in the west ; and beyond the dark sea, on clear days, the 

 distant land and inland mountains form an outer setting, stretch- 

 ing from the Ord of Caithness and Tarbatness of Cromarty, in the 

 north-north-east, past the grim portals of the Sutors and the Black 

 Isle, to the far-off head of the firth near Inverness. Inland, west- 

 ward and south westward from our position on the summit of 

 Kincorth Sand Hill, the inner margins of the Culbins are clothed 

 in bents and clumps of birch, and here and there a straggling, 

 struggling wind-bent pine — the advance-guards of the army of 

 the pine-trees which shut the sand out from the cultivated field 

 behind. Due south, south-east, and south-west, over the tops of 

 the pine belt, one can see the rich cropped and wooded areas of 

 Moray and Nairn, stretching aw\iy to the base of the distant Brae- 

 moray, and in the farthest distance even a peep may be had of 

 the giant Cairngorms beyond the Spey, with patches of late spring 

 snow still lying within the arms of the ' Corrie of the Arm Cliair.' 

 Low over the bents to eastward, and Major Chad wick's belt of 



