THE FRESH- WATER LOCHS OF SCOTLAND. 
13 
on account of the large area draining into it — an area 400 times greater 
than that of the loch. The fishing includes both salmon and trout, but is 
preserved. The loch trends in a west-north-west and east-south-east 
direction, and is nearly a mile in length, with a maximum breadth of 
a quarter of a mile. Its waters cover an area of about 88 acres, and 
it drains directly an area of about square miles, but since it receives the 
overflow from Lochs Baddanloch, Allt an Fhearna, a’ Chlair, nan Cuinne, 
and Truid air Sgithiche, its total drainage area exceeds 55J square miles. 
The maximum depth of 8 feet was observed approximately in the centre of 
the loch. The volume of water is estimated at 18 million cubic feet, and 
the mean depth at over 4^ feet. The loch w^as surveyed on October 14, 
1902, but the elevation of the lake-surface could not be determined ; when 
levelled by the Ordnance Survey officers on July 19, 1869, the elevation 
was found to be 376*6 feet above the level of the sea. Loch na Moine is 
quite simple in conformation, the water deepening gradually on all sides 
towards the centre, with weeds growing along the south-western shore and 
many stones in the narrow portion at the south-eastern (outflow) end. 
The flat-bottomed character of the basin is shown by the fact that an area of 
about 46:^ acres, or 53 per cent, of the total area of the loch, is covered by 
more than 5 feet of water. 
Temperatures taken at 1 p.m. on the date of the survey gave identical 
readings (48°*0 Fahr.) at the surface and at a depth of 6 feet. 
In the eleven lochs in the Brora and Helmsdale basins, as shown 
in the opposite table, 700 soundings were taken, and the aggregate area 
of the water-surface is 6*69 square miles, so that the average number of 
soundings per square mile of surface is 104. 
The aggregate volume of water contained in the lochs is estimated at 
2756 millions of cubic feet. The area drained by these lochs is about 
203 square miles, or over thirty times the area of the lochs. 
