16 GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND IMPORTANCE OF 
reduced to 7296. Since 1872 it is probable that the wooded area 
has again been increased to 10,000 acres to date of 1883. 
The exact areas of West Cromarty, as separate from Eoss-shire, 
are not so easily given, as they do not appear separately in any of 
the returns to which we have access ; and so scattered, indeed, are 
many smaller portions of this county, that it seems much better to 
include their areas along with those of Eoss-shire upon another 
occasion, which we trust may be soon afforded us. 
Taking Caithness in the same order, we find the total area of 
the county — including water areas, fresh and tidal — is quoted 
from the Ordnance Survey as 448,867 acres.^ Of this total, 438,878 
acres are land, 7271 acres are water (both tidal and fresh water 
being included), and the comparatively small area of 2718 acres 
are foreshore. The latter small proportion is of course due to the 
almost uniformly precipitous and rock-bound nature of the coast- 
line, there being but few sandy bays or inlets of importance. 
Of the land area of 438,878 acres, or about 685 square miles, 
the large proportion of 106,413 acres, or about 116 square miles — 
which includes all permanent pasture ground, exclusive of moun- 
tain land — is under cultivation. Only the insignificant area of 214 
acres is under wood ; and by far the largest portion of this is 
situated in the narrow glens of Berriedale and Langwell in the 
extreme S.E. of the county.^ Deducting these several areas from 
the full total of land area of 438,878 acres as above, we find the vast 
balance of 182,106 acres, or 284 square miles, of barren ground or 
mountain, ' flow,' sterila muir, and rock, by far the largest and 
least productive portion of which lies in the centre and south 
of the county, around the sources of the Thurso river, and of the 
1 The EncyclopcBdia Britannica says 455,708 acres, or 712 square miles. la 
estimating the above areas we do not consider the earlier estimates taken at the 
time of the Agricultural Survey of 1815. 
2 At Brawl, trees were planted by Sir John Sinclair's grandfather. In 1815 
it was an " old plantation." Two " Mountain Ash Trees " at that time were 
eighty years old (Agricultural Survey, 1815). 
