AND BRITISH CHANNEL* 



473 



broath, where the public road bounds the sea 

 shore. Within the last thirty years, the Trustees 

 for the highways have been under the necessity of 

 removing the road twice within the fields; and this 

 operation it has now become again necessary to re- 

 peat, for the safety of the traveller. The shores 

 of the estate of Seaton in this neighbourhood, and 

 the Earl of Northesk's estate of Aithie, including 

 the promontory called the Redhead, exhibit the 

 most unequivocal marks of decay from the same 

 cause ; and on a very slight inspection, the conti- 

 nued progress of disintegration is deducible from 

 the appearance of the shores at Montrose, the 

 North Esk river, Johnshaven, Dunottar Castle, 

 and the bay of Stonehaven. From thence along 

 the shores of Aberdeen and Banffshire, with little Aberdeen 

 exception, the coast consists either of extensive Banff, 

 tracts of sand or of primitive rocks, as granite, 

 porphyry and serpentine. The shifting nature of 

 the sands, which, when dry, have been blow^n in- 

 land, and have covered nearly the whole parish of 

 Furvie, belonging to the Earl of Errol, necessarily 

 prevents the effects of the sea from being so easily 

 traced as upon the softer kinds of rocks, or on al- 

 luvial grounds ; and although these rocky shores 

 do not yield so readily to the impulse of the waves, 

 yet even the granite itself cannot withstand the 

 continued force of the- sea, which here rolls its 

 surges upon it, in north-easterly gales, with un- 

 interrupted violence, all the way from the coasts 



H h 3 



