Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 3

ELGINSHIRE
Cromdale Hills, but returns to the Spey about 2 miles
■due E of Grantown, and keeps to the river as far as
Dulnan Bridge. It then turns up the Dulnan for
about a mile, and from that point proceeds in a direction
more or less northerly (not taking minor irregularities
into account), until it reaches the Moray Firth about 5
miles W of the mouth of the river Findhorn. The
lower part of the county is flat, and remarkable for its
amenity of climate, high cultivation, and beauty of
landscape, in which respects it holds the highest position
in the northern lowlands. The only exception is a part
between the mouth of the Findhorn and the western
boundary, which is covered by a mass of sand constantly
in motion in the slightest breeze of wind, and known as
the Cidbin Sands. Culbin was at one time almost the
richest and most fertile part of the county, but now
some 3600 acres are little better than an arid waste.
In 1693 the rental was worth what might be represented
by £6000 of our present money, but in 1694 or 1695
sand began to blow in from the shore, and rapidly
overwhelmed the whole district. From the Findhorn
eastward to Burghead, the tract along the coast is also
barren and sandy, and from Lossiemouth eastward to
the mouth of the Spey there are a series of great gravel
ridges formed from the boulders brought down by the
Spey, which have been in the course of ages carried
westward by the inshore cm-rent, and thrown up by the
sea. The district adjoining the coast along the parishes
•of Urquhart, St Andrews-Lhanbryd, Drainie, Duifus,
Spjmie, Alves, Kinloss and Dyke, and Moy is rich and
fertile with hea^'y loam and strong clay soils, and is so
flat that it might be mistaken for a portion of England
set down there by accident. High wooded ridges run-
ning through Alves, Elgin, and St Andi'ews-Lhanhryd
separate this from another flat district, not, however, of
so great extent as the last, nor so level, extending
through Speymouth, Elgin, and Forres, and sweeping
up to the S to the beginning of the hill country, which
occupies the S part of the county, where the land is
mostly covered mth heather and given over to gTouse
and the red deer, and where cultivation, when carried
on at all, is under much harder conditions of soil and
climate than in the rich and fertile ' Laigh of Moray.'
There are, however, along the courses of all the streams
numerous, though small, flats or haughs of great fer-
tility. The SOU of the arable lands of the county may
be classified under the general names of sand, clay,
loam, and reclaimed moss. Sand, or a light soil in
which sand predominates, extends, with inconsiderable
■exceptions, over the eastern half of the lowlands, or
most of Speymouth, Urc^uhart, St Andrews-Lhanbryd,
and Drainie, the eastern part of Spynie, part of Elgin,
and the lower lands of Birnie and Dallas. A clay soil
prevails throughout Dufi'us and Alves, part of Spynie,
and small strips in the sandy district. A loamy soil
covers extensive tracts in Duffus, Alves, and Spj'nie,
■and nearly the whole of Kinloss, Forres, Dyke, the
lower lands of RaSord and Edenkillie, and the alluvial
grounds of the highland straths. A clay loam covers a
considerable part of Knockando. Moss, worked into a
condition of tillage, occurs to a considerable extent in
Knockando, and in strips in the flat districts in the low
situatious. It is superincumbent on sand, and is so
peculiar in quality as to emit, on a hot day, a sulphureous
smell, and to strongly aifect the colour and formation of
of rising grain : it occurs also on the flats and slopes of
the lower hUls of the uplands, peaty in quality, but
corrected by the admi.xture of sand. The far extending
upland regions are prevailing moss and heath.
Though the low district has a northern exposure, the
■climate is so mUd that the hardier kinds of fruit — all
the varieties of the apple, and most of the varieties of
the pear and the plum — may, with very little attention,
be grown abundantly ; and fruits of greater delicacy —
the apricot, the nectarine, and the peach — ripen suffi-
ciently on a wall in the open air. The wind blows from
some point near the 'W during about 260 days in the
j'ear, and in summer it is for the most part a gentle
breeze, coming oftener from the S than from the N side
ELGINSHIRE
of the W. TVinds from the NW or K generally bring
the heaviest and longest rains. The district has no
hills sufficiently elevated to attract the clouds while
they sail from the mass of mountains in the S towards
the heights of Sutherland. The winter is singularly
mild, and snow lies generally for only a very biief
period. In the upland districts rain falls to the amount
of 5 or 6 inches more than the mean depth in the low
country, and there the seasons are often boisterous and
severe, and unpropitious weather delays and, by no
means seldom altogether, defies the elTorts of the former.
Rather more than half the county is drained by
the Spey and its tributaries. Of the latter the most
important are the Aven and the Dulnan, neither of
which have, however, more than a very small portion
of their course within the county. The middle part of
the county is drained by the river Lossie. It rises near
the centre of the upper part of the shire, and has a very
sinuous course in a general north-easterly direction, till
it enters the sea at Lossiemouth. Its principal tribu-
taries are the Lochty or Black Burn, the Burn of Glen
Latterich, and the Burn of Shogle. Tlie western part
is di-ained by the Findhorn and its tributaries. The
whole course of the Findhorn is very beautiful and
picturesque, till it expands, near the mouth, into the
open sheet of Findhorn Loch or Findhorn Bay. There
is at the mouth, between the village of Findhorn and
the Culbin Sands, a dangerous and much-dreaded bar.
The principal tributaries are the Divie and the Dorbock.
The latter issues from Lochindorb, and flows parallel
to the western boundary of the county, at a distance of
about a mile, along a course of about 10 miles, wdien,
after uniting with the Divie, the streams fall into the
Findhorn near Eelugas. The prmcipal lochs are — Loch-
indorb, which lies among the mountains, near the
point where Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness unite. It is
2J miles long and 5 furlongs broad at the widest
part. The Loch of Spynie, now only 5 furlongs long
by 14 furlong wide, was formerly an extensive lake
3 miles long and f mile wide, but by the drainage
operations carried on from time to time between 1779
and 1860, the whole of the loch was drained except-
ing a mere pool a little to the W of the old Castle
of Spynie. The present sheet of water has been re-
formed by the proprietor of Pitgaveny. Loch-na-Bo
{i X 14 furl.) lies 1 mile to the SE of the village of
Lhanbryd. It contains a large number of excellent
trout. The banks are prettil}' wooded, though up to
1773 the surrounding tract was merelj' a barren heathy
moor. There are a number of chalj'beate springs in the
county, but none of them are at all distinguished for
their medicinal properties. The surface of the county
rises gi'adually from N to S, the ridges getting higher
and higher till between Creag-an-Tarmachan and the
Cromdale Hills, a height of 2328 feet is attained. The
principal elevations going from E to "W and from N to
S are Findlay Seat (life feet), Eildon or Heldun Hill
(767), HUl of the Wangle (1020), Knock of Braemory
(1493), James Roy's Cairn (1691), Cairn-an-Loin (1797),
Craig Tiribeg (1586), Carn Sgriob (1590), Creag-an-Eigh
(1568).
Geology. — The geology of the Morayshire plain has
given rise to considerable controversy. For a time
indeed, the age of the reptiliferous sandstones N of the
town of Elgin was one of the most keenly disputed
points in Scottish geology. They had been classed for
many years with the Old Red Sandstone formation ; but
when Professor Huxley announced in 1858 that the
Elgin reptiles had marked affinities with certain Tiiassic
forms, geologists began to waver in this belief. The
subsequent discovery of the remains ot Ht/perodapcdon —
a tjqjical Elgin reptile — in beds of undoubted Triassic
age, in England and in India, caused some of the keenest
supporters of the old classification to abandon it alto-
gether. It must be admitted, however, that the strati-
graphical evidence is far from being satisfactory, owing
to the great accumulation of glacial and post-glacial
deposits.
The oldest rocks in the county belong to the great
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