18 
GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND IMPORTANCE OF 
reaches of rivers, usually retain their Graelic names, whilst emin- 
ences in the north-east, a few lakes, and lower stretches of rivers, 
and homesteads, villages, and towns, bear no trace of that language 
in their composition. 
The comparative distribution of Gaelic and Scandinavian names 
in the county may more shortly be expressed thus : — Gaelic 
occupies in the sheets of the late Ordnance Survey — on the one 
inch to the mile scale — almost absolute supremacy in 'No. 109 in 
the south-west ; more than half of sheet 110 in the south-east ; by 
far the larger portion of 115 in the north ; but only a very inferior 
area in No. 116 in the north-east. 
Scandinavian names are supreme in sheet 116; in a great 
minority in No. 115; occupying the coastward half of No. 110; 
and almost utterly disappearing in No. 109. 
In close connection with the geographical position of these 
counties and their geographical value, so to speak, and closely 
related to the statistics already quoted and compiled from the 
agricultural returns, we find yet another comparison of value in 
treating of faunal areas. All these geographical data are of value 
in investigating natural faunas or floras, and ought not to be 
passed by. What we allude to at present are the measurements 
of drainage areas of the rivers and their principal tributaries. Not 
only are these useful, and indeed necessary, to our Salmon Com- 
missioners, but they are interesting and valuable to the student of 
Nature in almost any branch. A description of our great dividing 
ranges of mountains, giving minute particulars of their physical 
aspects — geological and orographical — and illustrating their botany, 
would be of infinite value for many scientific purposes, and would 
define the great natural drainage basins of Great Britain. The 
materials for this must undoubtedly be in the possession of such 
men as Mr. Colin Phillip or Professor Heddle of St. Andrews, 
and of the members of the Geological and Ordnance Surveys, 
but have not yet been made accessible to the general public. 
Further, when the great dividing ranges, through all their sinuous 
courses, have been clearly treated of, there remain the great basins, 
the courses of their rivers, the foot-hills, and woodlands, and other 
