Fragments of Earth Lore: Sketches & Addresses Geological and Geographical

Before the advent of the last great age of ice the Kale would seem to have flowed from Marlfield, close to the line now followed by the turnpike road as far as Easter Wooden, after which it passed near the present sites of Blinkbonny and Mosstower, and so on to the Teviot, which it joined some little distance above Kalemouth. During the Ice Age many of the old river-courses were completely choked up with clay, stones, and gravel, so that when the ice melted away the rivers did not always or even often regain their old channels. Thus, in the case of the Kale, we find that the present course of the river below Marlfield is of recent or post-glacial age, having been excavated by the river since the close of the glacial epoch. The old or pre-glacial course lies completely choked up and concealed under the rubbish shot into it at a time when glacier-ice filled all the valley of the Kale down to Marlfield. At this latter place the Kale glacier seems to have made a considerable pause – it ceased for some time to retreat – and thus a heavy bank of gravel, sand, shingle, earth, blocks, and angular rubbish gathered in front of it, and obliterated the old river-course into which they were dropped. When the glacier at last disappeared, a lake was formed above the morainic dam that closed the valley below Marlfield, and the outflow of the lake took place at a point lying some little distance to the north of the old or pre-glacial course of the Kale. By slow degrees the river excavated a new channel for itself in the Old Red Sandstone rocks, and in doing so gradually lowered the level of the waters. This and the silting action of the Kale and its feeders slowly converted the lake-hollow into a broad alluvial flat through which the river now winds its way.

Another extensive lake seems to have occupied the vale of the Teviot between Jedfoot and Eckford, and similar old lake-beds occur in several of the hill-valleys. One good example is seen in the valley of the Oxnam Water, where the flat tract that extends from the old village of Oxnam up to the foot of the Row Hill indicates the former presence of a lake which has been drained by the stream cutting for itself a gorge in Silurian greywackés and shales. In many other valleys it is easy to see that the streams do not always occupy their pre-glacial courses, and some of the old forsaken courses are still patent enough. Thus, a glance at the hollow that extends from Mossburnford on the Jed to Hardenpeel on the Oxnam is enough to convince one that in pre-glacial, and probably in early post-glacial times also, a considerable stream has flowed from what is now the vale of the Jed into the valley of the Oxnam.

In all the valleys we meet with striking evidence to show that the streams and rivers must formerly have been larger than they are now. Certain banks and ridges of gravel fringe the valley-slopes at considerable heights, and indicate the action of deeper and broader currents than now make their way towards the sea. It is probable that these high-level gravel terraces date their existence back to the close of the Ice Age, when local glaciers still lingered in some of the mountain-valleys, and when in summer-time great floods and torrents descended from the hills.

An extremely humid climate seems to have characterised Scotland even in post-glacial times, as may be gathered from the phenomena of her peat-mosses. Very little peat occurs on the Scottish side of the Cheviots, and it is conspicuous chiefly on the very crest of the hills, where it attains a thickness that varies from a foot or two up to five or six yards. Here and there we detect the remains of birch under the peat, but the peat itself is composed chiefly of bog-moss and heather. The evidence so abundantly supplied by the peat-mosses in other parts of Scotland shows that after the Ice Age had passed away the Scottish area became clothed with luxuriant forests of oak, pine, and other trees. At that time the British Islands appear to have been joined to themselves and the Continent across the upraised beds of the Irish Sea and the German Ocean. Races of men who used polished stone implements and sailed in canoes that were hollowed out of single oaks inhabited the country, together with certain species of oxen (now either extinct or domesticated), the elk, the beaver, the wolf, and other animals, such as the dog and the sheep, which are still indigenous. The climate was more excessive then than it is now – the summers being warmer and the winters colder. By-and-by, however, submergence ensued, the great wooded plain that seems once to have extended between Britain and the Continent disappeared below the waves, and the climate of this country became more humid. The old forests began to decay and the peat-mosses to increase, until by-and-by large areas in the low-grounds passed into the condition of dreary moor and morass, and even the brushwood and stunted trees of the hills died down and became enveloped in a mantle of bog-moss. A study of the present condition of the Scottish peat-mosses leads one to believe that the rate of increase is now much exceeded by the rate of decay, and that the eventual disappearance of the peat that clothes hill-tops and valley-bottoms is only a question of time. Draining and other agricultural operations have no doubt influenced to some extent this general decay of the peat-mosses; but there is reason to suspect that the change of climate, to which the decay of the peat is due, may really be owing to some cosmical cause. Quite recently an accomplished Norwegian botanist has come to similar conclusions regarding the peat-mosses of the Scandinavian peninsula.

We have now traced the geological history of the Cheviot district down to the “Recent Period.” From this point the story of the past must be continued by the archæologist, and into his province I will not trespass further than to indicate some of the more remarkable traces which the early human occupants of the upland valleys left behind them. Before doing so, however, I may briefly recapitulate the general results we have obtained from our rapid review of the glacial and post-glacial deposits. A study of these has taught us that the Cheviot Hills and the adjoining low-grounds participated in those arctic conditions under the influence of which all Scotland and a large portion of England were buried beneath a wide-spread mer de glace. The Cheviots themselves were completely smothered under a mass of glacier-ice which extended across the vale of the Tweed, and was continuous over the Lammermuirs with the vast sheet that filled all the great lowlands of central Scotland. But although the Cheviots were thus overwhelmed, they yet served to divide the ice-flow, for we find that the gelid masses moved outwards from the hills towards the valley of the Tweed, turning gradually away to east and south-east to creep over the north part of England. How far south the ice-sheet reached has not yet been determined, but its moraine profonde or till may be traced to the edge of the Thames valley; and I have picked up in Norfolk ice-worn fragments of igneous rock, which have been derived from the Cheviots themselves, showing that Scottish ice actually invaded the low-grounds south of the Wash. Such severe glacial conditions, after continuing for a long time, were interrupted more than once by intervening periods characterised by a milder and more genial climate. The great mer de glace then melted out of the valleys, and for aught that we can say the snow and ice may even have vanished from the hills themselves. Vegetation now covered the country, and herds of the mammoth, the old extinct ox, the Irish elk, the reindeer, the horse, and probably other creatures, roamed over the now deserted beds of the glaciers. It was probably at this time that Palæolithic man lived in Britain. He was contemporaneous with lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, mammoths, reindeer, and other animals of southern and northern habitats, the former living in England when the climate was genial, but being replaced by the northern species when the temperature began again to fall, and snow and glaciers once more reappeared and crept downwards and outwards from the hills. Towards the close of the interglacial period the land became submerged to a considerable extent, and species of arctic shells lived over the sites of the drowned land where the mammoth and its congeners had flourished. By-and-by the cold so far increased that another great ice-sheet filled up the shallow sea, and as it slowly ground over the face of the land and the sea-bottom, it scoured out and demolished to a large extent all loose fluviatile, lacustrine, and marine accumulations. When at last the ice melted away, it left the ground cumbered with stony clay, and with much gravel and sand and morainic débris. It is underneath these deposits that we yet obtain now and again fragments of the life of that interglacial epoch. But in all the regions visited by the last great incursion of the mer de glace, such relics are comparatively rare; it is only when we get beyond the districts that were overwhelmed that the ancient interglacial remains are well preserved. Beyond the southern extremity reached by the latest general ice-sheet – that is to say, in the regions south of the Humber, we find the country often sprinkled with tumultuous heaps and wide-spread sheets of gravel and brick-earth, which seem to owe their origin to the floods and torrents that escaped from the melting ice. These waters, sweeping over the land, carried along with them such relics of man and beast as lay at the surface, washing away interglacial river-deposits, and scattering the materials far and wide over the undulating low-grounds of central and eastern England. Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly, of the Geological Survey of England, has shown that such is the origin of the so-called “river-gravels” with ancient flint implements and mammalian remains in the districts watered by the Little Ouse, the Waveney, and other rivers in that part of England. These gravels could not possibly have been deposited by the present rivers, for they are found capping the hills at a height of more than eighty feet above the sources of the streams. The whole aspect of the gravels, indeed, betokens the action of rapid floods and torrents, such as must have been discharged abundantly in summer-time from the melting ice-sheet that lay at no great distance to the north.

When the ice-sheet vanished away, it left the ground covered thickly in many places with its various deposits. Rivers and streams were thus often debarred from their old channels, and were forced to cut out for themselves new courses, partly in drifted materials, and partly in solid rock. A number of lakes then existed which have since been silted up. So long as glaciers lingered in the hill-valleys, the rivers seem to have flowed in greater volume than they now do. By-and-by the bare and treeless country became clothed with a luxuriant forest-growth, and was tenanted by animals, many of which are still indigenous to our country, while others have become locally extinct, such as wolf, beaver, and wild boar. In certain of the old lake-beds of the Cheviot district numerous remains of red-deer and other animals have been turned out in the search for marl, and in land drainage and reclamation operations – the red-deer antlers being sometimes of noble dimensions. It seems probable that in early post-glacial times our country was joined to the Continent and shared in a continental climate, the summers being then warmer and the winters colder than now.

The men who lived in Britain after the final disappearance of the great glaciers used stone implements, which were often polished and highly finished, and they sailed in canoes, being probably a race of active hunters and fishers. They belong to the archæologist’s “Neolithic” or new-stone period – the “Palæolithic” or old-stone period being of much older date, and separated, as I believe, from Neolithic times by the intervention of the last cold epoch of the Ice Age.

To the forest epoch succeeded a time when the climate became very humid, a result which may have been due in large part to the separation of Britain from the Continent. It was then that the ancient forests began to decay, and peat-mosses to increase. How long such humid conditions of climate characterised the country we can hardly say, but we know that nowadays our peat-mosses do not grow so rapidly as they once did, and indeed almost everywhere the rate of decay is greater than the rate of increase. This points to a further change of climate, and brings us at once face to face with the present.

And now a few words, in conclusion, as to the old camps and other remains that occur so abundantly in the valleys of the Cheviot Hills. In many of the hill-valleys, especially towards their upper reaches, as in the valleys of the Kale and the Bowmont, almost every hill is marked by the presence of one or more circular or oval camps or forts. They are generally placed in the most defensible positions, on the very tops of the hills or on projecting spurs and ridges. Most of them are of inconsiderable dimensions, and could not have afforded protection to any large number of men, for many hardly exceed one hundred feet in diameter. Not a few consist of only a single circular or oval rampart with an external ditch – the rampart being composed of the rude débris which was dug out to form the ditch. Others, however, are not only much larger (five to six hundred feet in diameter), but surrounded, in whole or in part, with two or more ramparts separated by intervening ditches; and I have noticed that as a rule the side which must have been most easily assailable was protected by several ramparts rising one above the other. From the extraordinary number of these hill-forts one has the impression that the upper valleys of the Cheviots must at one time have been thickly peopled, probably in pre-Roman times. It is easy to see that the camps or forts overlooking a valley often bear a certain relation to each other, as if the one had been raised to support the other, and not infrequently we can trace well-marked intrenchments extending across a hill-ridge, or along a hill-slope for a distance of not much short of a mile, and evidently having some strategic connection with the forts or camps in their vicinity. I found no trace of any “dwellings,” either near the forts or in the vicinity of the terraces. The only indications of what may have been the walls of such appear within a fortified camp, called the Moat Hill, at Buchtrig. This is an isolated knoll of rock, which has been strongly fortified – large slabs and blocks of the porphyrite of which it is composed having been wedged out with infinite pains to form circular ramparts. The “walls” are of course nearly level with the ground and grassed over, but they indicate little square enclosures, which may very possibly have been huts closely huddled together. This fort is oval, and measures five hundred feet by two hundred and seventy.

In the same neighbourhood we also meet with plentiful marks of ancient cultivation and with places of sepulture – all of which may without much doubt be referred to the same period as the camps and forts. The slopes of the hills are often marked with broad horizontal terraces, that remind one strongly of the “lazy-beds” of the Hebrides. They are evidently the “cultivated grounds” of the hill-men, and doubtless the hill-slopes were selected for various reasons, chief among which would be their retired and somewhat inaccessible position. The ease with which they could be drained and irrigated would be another of their recommendations; and we must bear in mind that at this early date the low-grounds were covered with forests and morasses, and therefore not so easily cultivated as the hill-slopes.

Here and there we notice also little conical hillocks or tumuli. They were formerly much more numerous, and by-and-by they will doubtless all disappear. Numbers, even within recent years, have been pulled down, partly to clear the ground, and partly for the sake of the stones of which they are composed. This is much to be regretted; for their destruction simply means the obliteration of historical records, the loss of which can never be made good. I asked a farmer what had become of the tumuli which at one time, according to the Ordnance Survey map, were dotted over the hill behind his house. “If it’s the wee knowes (knolls) you mean, I pu’d them down, for they were jist in the way. There was naething o’ importance below the stanes, only a wheen worthless bits o' pottery!” And the worthy pointed to a heap of stones behind a neighbouring “dyke,” where I afterwards found some fragments of the pottery which had been so ruthlessly demolished. These tumuli are no doubt old burial-places, and much information concerning the habits of our ancient predecessors might often be obtained by a careful examination of the mounds, when it is deemed essential to remove them. But, surely, after all, they might be spared, for they can seldom be so very much “in the way”; and, at all events, if they must be removed, might it not be well to communicate the fact of their approaching demolition to some local archæological society, or to any member of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, who for the sake of science would, I feel certain, do what was possible to preserve an accurate account of their contents?

“Standing-stones” are met with now and again, either singly or in groups, and sometimes they form circles. It is most likely that they were raised by the same people who made the forts and tilled the horizontal “lazy-beds.” One can only conjecture that they may have been designed as memorial stones, to mark the place where a chief or person of consequence was slain in battle. They may also mark burial-places, or indicate the site of some deed of prowess or other action or circumstance worthy of being remembered. Antiquarians at one time considered that all these stones were relics of druidical worship; but it is needless to say that this view has long been abandoned. That the ancient inhabitants of the Cheviots may have had some kind of religion is exceedingly probable, but it must have been of a very primitive kind, not more advanced than that of the North American Indians.

Such are some of the more notable relics of the people who lived in the valleys of the Cheviot Hills in pre-Roman times. These valleys, as I have said, seem to have supported a numerous population, who tilled the slopes and probably hunted in the forests of the adjoining low-grounds. That they lived in fear of foes is sufficiently evident from the number of their intrenchments and fortified camps, to which they would betake themselves whenever their enemies appeared.

What effect the Roman occupation had on the dwellers among these hills we cannot tell. The great “Watling Street” passes across the Cheviots, and there are some old circular forts and camps quite close to that wonderful road, along which many a battalion of Roman soldiers must have marched; and these forts, if of pre-Roman age, were not at all likely to have been held by the natives after Watling Street was made. In the remoter fastnesses of the hills, however, the old tribes may have continued to crop their “lazy-beds,” to hunt, and tend their herds, during the Roman occupation, and the old forts may have been in requisition long after the last Roman had disappeared over the borders.

But I have already, I fear, delayed too long over the old history of the Cheviot Hills, and must now draw my meagre sketches to a close. In my first paper I said that these hills were a terra incognita to the tourist. Those who visit the district must not therefore expect to meet with hotel accommodation. But “knowing” pedestrians will not be much disturbed with this information, and will probably find, after they have concluded their wanderings, that the hospitality and general heartiness for which our stalwart Borderers were famous in other days are still as noteworthy characteristics as they used to be.

V.

The Long Island, or Outer Hebrides.[10 - Good Words, 1879.]

I

That long range of islands and islets which, extending from latitude 56° 47' N. to latitude 58° 32' N., acts as a great natural breakwater to protect the north-west coast of Scotland from the rude assaults of the Atlantic billows is not much visited by the ordinary tourist. During “the season” the steamers now and again, it is true, deposit a few wanderers at Tarbert and Stornoway, some of whom may linger for a shorter or longer time to try a cast for salmon in Loch Laxdail, while others, on similar piscatorial deeds intent, may venture inland as far as Gearaidh nah Aimhne (Garrynahine). Others, again, who are curious in the matter of antiquities, may visit the weird standing-stones of Callernish, or even brave the jolting of a “trap” along the somewhat rough road that leads from Tarbert to Rodel, in order to inspect the picturesque little chapel there, and take rubbings of its quaint tombstones with their recumbent effigies of knights, and Crusaders’ swords, and somewhat incomprehensible Latinity. Occasionally a few bolder spirits may be tempted by the guide-books to visit Barra Head, with its ruddy cliffs and clouds of noisy sea-birds, or even to run north to the extremity of the Long Island to view the wonders of the Butt of Lewis. But, as a rule, the few summer visitants who are landed at Stornoway content themselves with a general inspection of the grounds about Sir James Mathieson’s residence, while those who are dropped at Tarbert on Saturday are usually quite ready to depart on Monday with the steamer that brought them. The fact is that hotel accommodation in the Outer Hebrides is rather limited, and the means of locomotion through the islands is on the same slender scale. Those, therefore, who are not able and willing to rough it had better not venture far beyond Tarbert and Stornoway.

When the islands are first approached they present, it must be confessed, a somewhat forbidding aspect. Bare, bleak rocks, with a monotonous rounded outline, crowd along the shore, and seem to form all but the very highest portions of the land that meet our view, while such areas of low-ground as we can catch a glimpse of appear to be everywhere covered with a dusky mantle of heath and peat. But, although the general character of the scenery is thus tame and sombre, yet there are certain districts which in their wild picturesqueness are hardly surpassed by many places in the northern Highlands, while one may search the coast-line of the mainland in vain for cliffs to compare with those gaunt walls of rock, against which the great rollers of the Atlantic continually surge and thunder. It is wonderful, too, how, under the influence of a light-blue sky, flecked with shining silvery clouds, the sombre peat-lands lighten up and glow with regal purple and ruddy brown. With such a sky above him, and with a lively breeze fresh from the Atlantic and laden with the sweetness of clover and meadow-hay and heather-bloom sweeping gaily past him, what wanderer in the Outer Hebrides need be pitied? And such days are by no means so rare in these islands as many a jaundiced Lowlander has maintained. It is true that heavy mists and drizzling rain are often provokingly prevalent, and I cannot forget the experience of a sad-hearted exile, who had resided continuously for a year in Lewis, and who, upon being asked what kind of climate that island enjoyed, replied: "Sir, it has no climate. There are nine months of winter, and three months of very bad weather." For myself, I can say that my experience of the climate in June, July, and early August of several years has been decidedly favourable. During those months I found comparatively few days in which a very fair amount of walking and climbing could not be accomplished with ease and pleasure, and that is a good deal more than one could venture to say of Skye and many parts of the west coast of the mainland. The greatest drawback to one’s comfort are the midges, which in these islands are beyond measure bloodthirsty, and quite as obnoxious as the most carnivorous mosquitoes. Smoking, and all the other arts and devices by which the designs of these tiny pests are usually circumvented, have no effect upon the Hebridean vampires. In the low-grounds especially they make life a burden. But those who have already become acquainted with the Ross-shire midges, and yet have preserved their equanimity, may feel justified in braving the ferocity of the Hebridean hosts. And if they do so I believe they will be well repaid for their courage. To the hardy pedestrian, especially, who likes to escape from the beaten track laid down in guide-books, it will be a pleasure in itself to roam over a region which has not yet come entirely under the dominion of Mr. Cook. If he be simply a lover of the picturesque he will yet not be disappointed, and possibly he may pick up a few hints in these notes as to those districts which are most likely to repay him for his toil in reaching them. But if to his love of the picturesque he joins a taste for archæological pursuits, then I can assure him there is a rich and by no means exhausted field of study in the antiquities of the Long Island. Interesting, however, as are the relics of prehistoric and later times which one meets with, yet it is the geologist, perhaps, who will be most rewarded by a visit to these islands.

The physical features of the Outer Hebrides are, as already stated, somewhat monotonous, but this is quite consistent with considerable variety of scenic effect. All the islands are not equally attractive, although the configuration of hills and low-grounds remains persistently the same from the Butt of Lewis to Barra Head. The most considerable island is that of which Lewis and Harris form the northern and southern portions respectively. By far the larger part of the former is undulating moorland, the only really mountainous district being that which adjoins Harris in the south. A good general idea of the moorlands is obtained by crossing the island from Stornoway to Garrynahine. What appeared at first to be only one vast extended peat-bog is then seen to be a gently-undulating country, coated, it is true, with much peat in the hollows, but clad for the most part with heath, through which ever and anon peer bare rocks and rocky débris. Now and again, indeed, especially towards the centre of the island, the ground rises into rough round-topped hills, sprinkled sparingly with vegetation. One of the most striking features of the low-grounds, however, is the enormous number of freshwater lakes, which are so abundant as to form no small proportion of the surface. They are, as a rule, most irregular in outline, but have a tendency to arrange themselves in two directions – one set trending from south-east to north-west, while another series is drawn out, as it were, from south-west to north-east. I am sure that I am within the mark in estimating the freshwater lakes in the low-grounds of Lewis to be at least five hundred in number. In the mountain-district the lakes are, of course, confined to the valleys, and vary in direction accordingly.

Harris and the southern part of Lewis are wholly mountainous, and show hardly a single acre of level ground. The mountains are often bold and picturesque, especially those which are over 1600 feet in height. They are also exceedingly bare and desolate, the vegetation on their slopes being poor and scanty in the extreme. Some of the hills, indeed, are absolutely barren. In North Harris we find the highest peaks of the Outer Hebrides: these are the Clisham, 2622 feet, and the Langa, 2438 feet. The glens in this elevated district are often wild and rugged, such as the Bealach-Miavag and the Bealach-na-Ciste, both of which open on West Loch Tarbert. But amid all this ruggedness and wild disorder of broken crag and beetling precipice, even a very non-observant eye can hardly fail to notice that the general contour or configuration of the hills is smooth, rounded, and flowing, up to a rather well-marked level, above which the outline becomes broken and interrupted, and all the rounded and smoothed appearance vanishes. The contrast between the smoothly-flowing contour of the lower elevations and the shattered and riven aspect of the harsh ridges, sharp peaks, and craggy tors above, is particularly striking. The mammillated and dome-shaped masses have a pale, ghastly grey hue, their broad bare surfaces reflecting the light freely, while at higher elevations the abundant irregularities of the rocks throw many shadows, and impart a darker aspect to the mountain-tops.

The appearances now described are very well seen along the shores of West Loch Tarbert. All the hills that abut upon that loch show smoothed and rounded faces, and this character prevails up to a height of 1600 feet, or thereabout, when all at once it gives way, and a broken, interrupted contour succeeds. Thus the top of the Tarcall ridge in South Harris is dark, rough, and irregular, while the slopes below are grey, smooth, and flowing. The same is conspicuously the case with the mountains in North Harris, the ruinous and sombre-looking summits of the Langa and the Clisham soaring for several hundred feet above the pale grey mammillated hills that sweep downwards to the sea.

After having familiarised themselves with the aspect of the hills as seen from below, the lover of the picturesque, not less than the geologist, will do well to ascend some dominant point from which an extensive bird’s-eye view can be obtained. For such purpose I can recommend the Tarcall and Roneval in South Harris, the Clisham and the Langa in North Harris, and Suainabhal in Lewis. The view from these hills is wonderfully extensive and very impressive. From Suainabhal one commands nearly all Lewis; and what a weird picture of desolation it is! An endless succession of bare, grey, round-backed rocks and hills, with countless lakes and lakelets nestling in their hollows, undulates outwards over the districts of Uig and Pairc. Away to the north spread the great moorlands with their lochans, while immediately to the south one catches a fine panoramic view of the mountains of Harris. And then those long straggling arms of the sea, reaching into the very heart of the island – how blue, and bright, and fresh they look! I suppose the natives of the Lewis must have been fishermen from the very earliest times. It seems hardly possible otherwise to believe that the bare rocks and peat-bogs, which form the major portion of its surface, could ever have supported a large population; and yet there is every evidence to show that this part of the Long Island was tolerably well populated in very early days. The great standing-stones of Callernish and the many other monoliths, both solitary and in groups, that are scattered along the west coast of Lewis, surely betoken as much. And those curious round towers, or places of refuge and defence, which are so well represented in the same district, although they may be much younger in date than the monoliths of Callernish, tell the same tale.

From the summits of the Clisham and the Langa the view is finer than that obtained from Suainabhal. The former overlook all the high-grounds of Harris and Lewis, and the monotonous moors with their countless straggling lakes and peaty tarns. Indeed, they dominate nearly the whole of the Long Island, the hills of distant Barra being quite distinguishable. Of course, the lofty island of Rum, and Skye with its Coolins, are both clearly visible, the whole view being framed in to eastward by the mountains of Ross and Sutherland. On a clear day, which, unfortunately, I did not get, one should be quite able to see St. Kilda. Hardly less extensive is the view obtained from Roneval (1506 feet) in the south of Harris. Far away to the west lie St. Kilda and its little sister islet of Borerey. Southwards stretch the various islands of the Outer Hebrides – North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, and Barra. How plainly visible they all are – a screen of high mountains facing the Minch, and extending, apparently, along their whole eastern margin – with broad lake-dappled plains sweeping out from the foot-hills to the Atlantic. In the east, Skye with its spiky Coolins spreads before one, and north of Skye we easily distinguish Ben Slioch and the mountains of Loch Maree and Loch Torridon. South Harris lies, of course, under our feet, and it is hard to give one who has not seen it an adequate notion of its sterile desolation. Round-backed hills and rocks innumerable, scraped bare of any soil, and supporting hardly a vestige of vegetation; heavy mountain-masses with a similar rounded contour, and equally naked and desolate; blue lakelets scattered in hundreds among the hollows and depressions of the land: such is the general appearance of the rocky wilderness that stretches inland from the shores of the Minch. Then all around lies the great blue sea, shining like sapphire in the sun, and flecked with tiny sails, where the fishermen are busy at their calling.

From what has now been said, it will readily be understood that there is not much cultivable land in Harris and the hilly parts of Lewis. What little there is occurs chiefly along the west coast, a character which we shall find is common to most of the islands of the Outer Hebrides. In the neighbourhood of Stornoway, and over considerable areas along the whole west coast of Lewis, the moorlands have been broken in upon by spade and plough, with more or less success. But natural meadow-lands, such as are frequently met with on the west side of many of the islands both of the Outer and Inner Hebrides, are not very common in Lewis.

One of the most notable features of the hillier parts of the Long Island are the enormous numbers of loose stones and boulders which are everywhere scattered about on hill-top, hill-side, and valley-bottom. Harris is literally peppered with them, and they are hardly less abundant in the other islands. They are of all shapes and sizes – round, sub-angular, and angular. One great block in Barra I estimated to weigh seven hundred and seventy tons. Many measure over three or four yards across, while myriads are much smaller. These boulders are sometimes utilised in a singular way. In Harris, there being only one burial-place, the poor people have often to carry their dead a long distance, and this of course necessitates resting on the journey. To mark the spot where they have rested, the mourners are wont to erect little cairns by the road-side, many of which are neatly built in the form of cones and pyramids, while others are mere shapeless heaps of stones thrown loosely together. Instead of raising cairns, however, they occasionally select some boulder, and make it serve the purpose by canting it up and inserting one or more stones underneath. Occasionally I have seen in various parts of the mainland great boulders cocked up at one end in the same way. Some of these may be in their natural position, but as they often occupy conspicuous and commanding situations, I am inclined to think that the cromlech-builders may have tampered with them for memorial purposes. The present custom of the Harris men may therefore be a survival from that far-distant period when Callernish was in its glory.

North Uist is truly a land of desolation and dreariness. Bare, rocky hills, which are remarkable for their sterile nakedness even in the Long Island, form the eastern margin, and from the foot of these the low, undulating rocky and peaty land stretches for some ten or twelve miles to the Atlantic. The land is everywhere intersected by long, straggling inlets of sea-water, and sprinkled with lakes and peaty tarns innumerable. Along the flat Atlantic coast, which is overlooked by some sparsely-clad hills, are dreary stretches of yellow sand blown up into dunes. Near these are a few huts and a kirk and manse. Not a tree, not even a bush higher than heather, is to be seen. Peat, and water, and rock; rock, and water, and peat – that is North Uist. The neighbourhood of Lochmaddy, which is the residence of a sheriff-substitute, and rejoices besides in the possession of a jail, is depressing in the extreme. It is made up of irregular bits of flat land all jumbled about in a shallow sea, so that to get to a place one mile in direct distance you may have to walk five or six miles, or even more. I could not but agree with the natives of the more coherent parts of the Long Island, who are wont to declare that Lochmaddy is only “the clippings of creation” – the odds and ends and scraps left over after the better lands were finished. North Uist, however, boasts of some interesting antiquities – Picts’ houses, and a great cairn called the Barp, inside of which, according to tradition, rest the remains of a wicked prince of the “good old days.” Notwithstanding these, there are probably few visitors who will not pronounce North Uist to be a dreary island.

Benbecula is precisely like North Uist, but it lacks the bare mountains of the latter. There is only one hill, indeed, in Benbecula; all the rest is morass, peat, and water.

Massive mountains fringe all the eastern shores of South Uist, and send westward numerous spurs and foot-hills that encroach upon the “machars,” or good lands, so as to reduce then to a mere narrow strip, bordering on the Atlantic. Save the summits of Beinn Mhor (2033 feet) and Hecla (1988 feet), which are peaked and rugged, all the hills show the characteristic flowing outline which has already been described in connection with the physical features of Harris. The low-grounds are, as usual, thickly studded with lakes, and large loose boulders are scattered about in all directions.

Barra is wholly mountainous, and, except that it is somewhat less sterile, closely resembles Harris in its physical features, the hills being smoothed, rounded, and bare, especially on the side of the island that faces the Minch. Of the smaller islands that lie to the south, such as Papey, Miuley, and Bearnarey, the most noteworthy features are the lofty cliffs which they present to the Atlantic. For the rest, they show precisely the same appearances as the hillier and barer portions of the larger islands – rounded rocks with an undulating outline, dotted over with loose stones and boulders, and now and again half-smothered in yellow sand, which the strong winds blow in upon them.

There is thus, as I have said, considerable uniformity and even monotony throughout the whole range of the Outer Hebrides. I speak, however, chiefly as a geologist. An artist, no doubt, will find infinite variety, and as he wends his way by moorland, or mountain-glen, or sea-shore, scenes are constantly coming into view which he will be fain to transfer to his sketch-book. The colour-effects, too, are often surprisingly beautiful. When the rich meadow-lands of the west coast are in all their glory, they show many dazzling tints and shades, the deep tender green being dashed and flushed with yellow, and purple, and scarlet, and blue, over which the delighted eye wanders to a belt of bright sand upon the shore, and the vast azure expanse of the Atlantic beyond. Inland are the heath-clad moors, sprinkled with grey boulders and masses of barren rock, and interspersed with lakes, some of which are starred with clusters of lovely water-lilies. Behind the moorlands, again, rise the grim, bald mountains, seamed and scarred with gullies, and in their very general nakedness and sterility offering the strongest contrast to the variegated border of russet moor, and green meadow, and yellow beach that fringe the Atlantic coast.

All through the islands, indeed, the artist will come upon interesting subjects. A most impressive scene may sometimes be witnessed on crossing the North Ford, between North Uist and Benbecula. At low-water, the channel or sound between these two islands, which is five miles in breadth, disappears and leaves exposed a wide expanse of wet sand and silt, dotted with black rocks and low tangle-covered reefs and skerries. On the morning I passed over, ragged sheets of mist hung low down on the near horizon, half-obscuring and half-revealing the stony islets, and crags, and hills that lay between the ford and the Minch. Seen through such a medium, the rocks assumed the most surprising forms, sometimes towering into great peaks and cliffs, at other times breaking up, as it were, into low reefs and shoals, and anon dissolving in grey mist and vapour. At other times the thin cloud-curtain would lift, and then one fancied one saw some vast city with ponderous walls and battlements, and lofty towers and steeples, rising into the mist-wreaths that hung above it, while from many points on the Benbecula coast, where kelp was being prepared, clouds of smoke curled slowly upwards, as if from the camp-fires of some besieging army. The track of the ford winds round and about innumerable rocks, upon which a number of “natives,” each stooping solitary and silent to his or her work, were reaping the luxuriant seaweed for kelp-making. Their silence was quite in keeping with the general stillness, which would have been unbroken but for the harsh scream of the sea-birds, as they ever and anon rose scared from their favourite feeding-grounds while we plodded and plashed on our way. The artist who could successfully cope with such a scene would paint a singularly weird and suggestive picture.

But, to return to the physical features of the Long Island, what, we may ask, is the cause of that general monotony of outline to which reference has so frequently been made? At first we seem to get an answer to our question when we are told that the islands of the Outer Hebrides are composed chiefly of one and the same kind of rock. Everyone nowadays has some knowledge of the fact that the peculiar features of any given district are greatly due to the character and arrangement of the rock-masses. For example, who is not familiar with the outline of a chalk country, as distinguished from the contour of a region the rocks of which are composed, let us say, of alternating beds of limestone and sandstone and masses of old volcanic material? The chalk country, owing to the homogeneousness of its component strata, has been moulded by the action of weather and running water into an undulating region with a softly-flowing outline, while the district of composite formation has yielded unequally to the action of Time’s workers – rains, and frosts, and rivers – and so is diversified with ridge, and escarpment, and knolls, and crags. When, therefore, we learn that the Outer Hebrides are composed for the most part of the rock called gneiss and its varieties, we seem to have at once found the meaning of the uniformity and monotony. It is true that although pink and grey gneiss and schistose rocks prevail from the Butt of Lewis to Barra Head, yet there are some other varieties occasionally met with – thus soft red sandstone and conglomerate rest upon the gneissic rocks near Stornoway, but they occur nowhere else throughout the Long Island. Now and again, however, the gneiss gives place to granite, as on the west coast of Lewis near Carloway; and here and there the strata are pierced by vertical dykes and curious twisted and reticulated veins of basalt-rock. All these, however, hold but a minor and unimportant place as constituents of the islands. Gneiss is beyond question the most prevalent rock, and we seem justified in assigning the peculiar monotony of the Outer Hebridean scenery to that fact.

But when we come to examine the matter more attentively, we find that there is still some important factor wanting. We have not got quite to the solution of the question. When we study the manner in which the gneiss and gneissic rocks disintegrate and break up at the sea-coast or along the flanks of some rugged mountain-glen, we see they give rise to an irregular uneven surface. They do not naturally decompose and exfoliate into rounded dome-shaped masses, such as are so commonly met with all through the islands, but rather tend to assume the aspect of rugged tors, and peaks, and ridges. The reason for this will be more readily understood when it is learned that the gneissic rocks of the Outer Hebrides are for the most part arranged in strata, which, notwithstanding their immense antiquity – (they are the oldest rocks in Europe) – and the many changes they have undergone, are yet, as a rule, quite distinguishable. The strata are seldom or never horizontal, but are usually inclined at a high angle, either to north-east or south-west, although sometimes, as in the vicinity of Stornoway, the “dip” or inclination of the beds is to south-east. Throughout the major portion of the Long Island, however, the outcrop of the strata runs transversely across the land from south-east to north-west. Now we know that when this is the case strata of variable composition and character give rise to long escarpments and intervening hollows – the escarpments marking the outcrops of the harder and more durable beds, and the hollows those strata that are softer and more easily eroded by the action of the denuding forces, water and frost. When the dip of the strata is north-east we expect the escarpments to face the south-west, and the reverse will be the case when the strata incline in the opposite direction.

Seeing then that the Outer Hebrides are composed chiefly of gneissic rocks and schists which yield unequally to the weather, and which, in the course of time, would naturally give rise to lines of sharp-edged escarpments or ridges and intervening hollows, with now and again massive hills and mountains showing great cliffs and a generally broken and irregular outline, why is it that such rugged features are so seldom present at low levels, and are only conspicuous at the very highest elevations? The rocks of the Outer Hebrides are of immense antiquity, and there has therefore been time enough for them to assume the irregular contour which we might have expected. But in place of sharp-rimmed escarpments, and tors, and broken shattered ridges, we see everywhere a rounded and smoothly-flowing configuration which prevails up to a height of 1600 feet or thereabout, above which the rocks take on the rugged appearance which is natural to them. By what magic have the strata at the lower levels escaped in such large measure from the action of rain and frost, which have furrowed and shattered the higher mountain-tops?

I have said that long lines of escarpment and ridges, corresponding to the outcrops of the harder and more durable strata, are not apparent in these islands. A trained eye, however, is not long in discovering that such features, although masked and obscured, are yet really present. The round-backed rocks are drawn out, as it were, in one persistent direction, which always agrees with the strike or outcrop of the strata; and in many districts one notices also that long hollows traverse the land from south-east to north-west in the same way. Such alternating hollows and rounded ridges are very conspicuous in Barra and the smaller islands to the south, and they may likewise be noted in most of the larger islands also. Looking at these and other features, the geologist has no hesitation in concluding that the whole of the islands have been subjected to some powerful abrading force, which has succeeded to a large extent in obliterating the primary configuration of the land. The rough ridges have been rounded off, the sharp escarpments have been bevelled, the abrupt tors and peaks have been smoothed down. Here and there, it is true, the dome-shaped rock-masses are beginning again to break up under the action of the weather so as to resume their original irregular configuration. And, doubtless, after the lapse of many ages, rain and frost will gradually succeed in destroying the present characteristic flowing outlines, and the islands will then revert to their former condition, and rugged escarpments, sharp peaks, and rough broken hummocks and tors will again become the rule. But for a long time to come these grey Western Islands will continue to present us with some of the most instructive examples of rounded and mammillated rock-masses to be met with in Europe. From Barra Head in Bearnarey to the Butt of Lewis we are constantly confronted by proofs of the former presence of that mysterious abrading power, which has accommodated itself to all the sinuosities of the ground, so that from the sea-level up to a height of 1600 feet at least, the eye rests almost everywhere upon bare round-backed rocks and smoothed surfaces.

II

In the preceding article I have described the peculiar configuration of the Long Island – rounded and flowing for the most part – and have pointed out how that softened outline is not such as the rocks would naturally assume under the influence of the ordinary agents of erosion with which we are familiar in this country. The present contour has superseded an older set of features, which, although highly modified or disguised, and often well-nigh obliterated, are yet capable of being traced, and are, no doubt, the conformation assumed by the rocks under the long-continued action of rain and frost and running water. We have now to inquire what it was that removed or softened down the primal configuration I refer to, and gave to the islands their present monotonous, undulating contour.

Any one fresh from the glacier-valleys of Switzerland or Norway could have little doubt as to the cause of the transformation. The smoothed and rounded masses of the Outer Hebrides are so exactly paralleled by the ice-worn, dome-shaped rocks over which a glacier has flowed, that our visitor would have small hesitation in ascribing to them a similar origin; and the presence of the countless perched blocks and boulders which are scattered broadcast over the islands would tend to confirm him in his belief. A closer inspection of the phenomena would soon banish all doubt from his mind; for, on the less-weathered surfaces, he would detect those long parallel scratches and furrows which are the sure signs of glacial action, while, in the hollows and over the low-grounds, he would be confronted with that peculiar deposit of clay and sand and glaciated stones and boulders which are dragged on underneath flowing ice.

Having satisfied ourselves that the rounded outline of the ground is the result of former glacial action, our next step is to discover, if we can, in what direction the abrading agent moved. Did the ice, as we might have supposed, come out of the mountain-valleys and overflow the low country? If that had been the case, then we should expect to find the glacial markings radiating outwards in all directions from the higher elevations. Thus the low-grounds of Uig, in Lewis, should give evidence of having been overflowed by ice coming from the Forest of Harris; the undulating, rocky, and lake-dappled region that extends between Loch Roag and Loch Erisort should be abraded and striated from south-west to north-east. Instead of this, however, the movement has clearly been from south-east to north-west. All the prominent rock-faces that look towards the Minch have been smoothed off and rounded, while in their rear the marks of rubbing and abrading are much less conspicuous. It is evident that the south-east exposure has borne the full brunt of the ice-grinding – the surfaces that are turned in the opposite direction, or towards the Atlantic, having been in a measure protected or sheltered by their position. The striations or scratches that are seen upon the less-weathered surfaces point invariably towards the north-west, and from their character and the mode in which they have been graved upon the rock, we are left in no doubt as to the trend of the old ice-plough – which was clearly from south-east to north-west. Nor is it only the low-grounds that are marked in this direction. Ascend Suaina (1300 feet), and you shall find it showing evident signs of having been abraded all over, from base to summit. The same, indeed, is the case with all the hills that stretch from sea to sea between Uig and Loch Seaforth. Beinn Mheadonach, Ceann Resort, Griosamul, and Liuthaid, are all strongly glaciated from south-east to north-west.

North and South Harris yield unequivocal evidence of having been overflowed by ice which did not stream out of the mountain-valleys, but crossed the island from the Minch to the Atlantic. A number of mountain-glens, coming down from the Forest of Harris, open out upon West Loch Tarbert, and these we see have been crossed at right angles by the ice – the mountains between them being strongly abraded from south-east to north-west. It is the same all over South Harris, which affords the geologist every evidence of having been literally smothered in ice, which has moved in the same persistent direction. The rock-faces that look towards the Minch are all excessively naked; they have been terribly ground down and scraped, and the same holds good with every part of the island exposed to the south-east.

Now, the mode in which the rocks have been so ground, scraped, rounded, and smoothed betokens very clearly the action of land-ice, and not of floating-ice or icebergs. The abrading agent has accommodated itself to all the sinuosities of the ground, sliding into hollows and creeping out of them, moulding itself over projecting rocks, so as eventually to grind away all their asperities, and convert rugged tors and peaks into round-backed, dome-shaped masses. It has carried away the sharp edges of escarpments and ridges, and has deepened the intervening hollows in a somewhat irregular way, so that now these catch the drainage of the land and form lakes. Steep rocks facing the Minch have been bevelled off and rounded atop, while in their rear the ice-plough, not being able to act with effect, has not succeeded in removing the primeval ruggedness of the weathered strata.

I have said that the movement of the ice was from south-east to north-west. But a close examination of the ice-markings will show that the flow was very frequently influenced by the form of the ground. Minor features it was able to disregard, but some prominent projecting rock-masses succeeded in deflecting the ice that flowed against them. For example, if we study the rocks in North Harris, we shall find that the Langa and the Clisham have served as a wedge to divide the ice, part of which flowed away into Lewis, while the other current or stream crept out to sea by West Loch Tarbert. The Langa and the Clisham, indeed, raised their heads above the glacier mass – they were islets in a sea of ice. It is for this reason that they and the Tarcull ridge in South Harris have not been smoothed and abraded, but still preserve their weathered outline. All surfaces below a height of 1600 feet which are exposed to the south-east, and which have not been in recent times broken up by the action of rain and frost, exhibit strongly-marked glaciation. But above that level no signs of ancient ice-work can be recognised.

We see now why it is that the hill-slopes opposite the Minch should, as a rule, be so much more sterile than those which slope down to the Atlantic. The full force of the ice was exerted upon the south-east front, in the rear of which there would necessarily be comparatively “quiet” ice. For the same reason we should expect to find much of the rock débris which the ice swept off the south-east front sheltering on the opposite side. Neither clay nor sand nor stones would gather under the ice upon the steep rocks that face the Minch. The movement there was too severe to permit of any such accumulation. But stones and clay and sand were carried over and swept round the hills, and gradually accumulated in the rear of the ice-worn rocks, just in the same way as gravel and sand are heaped up behind projecting stones and boulders in the bed of a stream. Hence it is that the western margin of Harris is so much less bleak than the opposite side. Considerable taluses of “till,” as the sub-glacial débris is called, gather behind the steeper crags, and ragged sheets of the same material extend over the low-grounds. All the low-grounds of Lewis are in like manner sprinkled with till. Over that region the ice met with but few obstacles to its course, and consequently the débris it forced along underneath was spread out somewhat equally. But wherever hills and peaks and hummocks of rock broke the regularity of the surface, there great abrasion took place and no till was accumulated.

Thus the position and distribution of this sub-glacial débris or bottom-moraine tell the same tale as the abraded rocks and glacial striæ, and clearly indicate an ice-flow from the south-east. This is still further proved by the manner in which the upturned ends of the strata are frequently bent over underneath the till in a north-westerly direction, while the fragments dislodged from them and enclosed in the sub-glacial débris stream away as it were to the same point of the compass. Not only so, but in the west of Lewis, where no red sandstone occurs, we find boulders of red sandstone enclosed in the till, which could not have been derived from any place nearer than Stornoway. In other words, these boulders have travelled across the island from the shores of the Minch to the Atlantic sea-board.

Having said so much about the glaciation of Lewis and Harris, I need not do more than indicate very briefly some of the more interesting features of the islands further south.

I spent some time cruising up and down the Sound of Harris, and found that all the islets there had been ground and scraped by ice flowing in the normal north-west direction, and sub-glacial débris occurs on at least one of the little islands – Harmetrey. But all the phenomena of glaciation are met with in most abundance in the dreary island of North Uist. The ridge of mountains that guards its east coast has been battered, and ground down, and scraped bare in the most wonderful manner, while the melancholy moorlands are everywhere sprinkled with till, full of glaciated stones, many of which have travelled west from the coast range. Benbecula shows in like manner a considerable sprinkling of till, and the trend of the glacial striæ is the same there as in North Uist, namely, a little north of west. There are no hills of any consequence in Benbecula, but the highly-abraded and barren-looking mountains that fringe the eastern margin of North Uist are continued south in the islands of Roney and Fuiey, either of which it would be hard to surpass as examples of the prodigious effect of land-ice in scouring, scraping, and grinding the surface over which it moves.

South Uist presents the same general configuration as North Uist, its east coast being formed of a long range of intensely glaciated mountains, in the rear of which ragged sheets and heaps of sub-glacial débris are thrown and scattered over the low, undulating tract that borders the Atlantic. No part of either Benbecula or North Uist has escaped the action of ice, but in South Uist that knot of high-ground which is dominated by the fine mountains of Beinn Mhor and Hecla towered above the level of the glacier-mass, and have thus been the cause of considerable deflection of the ice-flow. The ice-stream divided, as it were, part flowing round the north flank of Hecla, and part streaming past the southern slopes of Beinn Mhor. But the ice-flow thus divided speedily reunited in the rear of the mountains, the southern stream creeping in from the south-east, and the northern stream stealing round Hecla towards the south-west. The track of this remarkable deflection and reunion is clearly marked out by numerous striæ all over the low-grounds that slope outwards to the Atlantic coast. The till, it need hardly be added, affords the same kind of evidence as the sub-glacial deposits of the other islands, and points unmistakably to a general ice-movement across South Uist from the Minch to the Atlantic.

The influence which an irregular surface has in causing local deflections of an ice-flow is also well seen in Barra, where the striæ sometimes point some 5° or 10°, and sometimes 25° and even 35° north of west – these variations being entirely due to the configuration of the ground. This island is extremely bare in many places, more especially over all the region that slopes to the Minch. The Atlantic border is somewhat better covered with soil, as is the case with South Uist and the other islands already described.