Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

412
MULL.
tween the line and the main ocean, would be only
6^ miles in length of the peninsula of Gribon be-
tween Loch-na-Keal and Loch-Scridon, and nearly
all or about 16 miles of the long peninsula called
the Ross of Mull, which runs out to the Sound of
Icolmkill, and, notwithstanding its great length,
possesses a mean breadth of little more than 4 miles.
Mull may be summarily characterized as having a
boisterous coast, a wet and stormy climate, and a
rough, unpromising, and trackless surface, redeemed
only by fine spots ' few and far between ' in sheltered
valleys, or more frequently at the head of bays and
the bolder inlets of the sea. " We passed the head
of Loch-Frisa," says Lord Teignmouth, " and viewed
from its shore the lofty summit of Benmore. Mull
is, with the exception of some patches of arable
land, a vast moor." Yet, as if willing to say some-
thing which might mitigate the effects of so unmea-
sured an anathema, his lordship adds: "Near Tober-
mory is a sequestered scene of much beauty, recalling
to the Italian traveller in miniature the recollection
of Terni. Saeheverel, 150 years ago, was struck
with its resemblance to Italian scenery. A lake is
enclosed by an amphitheatre of hills covered with
oak, interspersed with torrents, forming picturesque
cascades." " The rapidity," say the Messrs. An-
derson, " with which its rocks decompose, prevents
the island from having much picturesque beauty ;
and the tourist will be but ill rewarded in searching
for fine scenery at any distance from the coast. Of
an altitude exceeding 3,000 feet, the central group of
mountains — among which Benmore rises supreme —
vie in height with the Cuchullins of Skye, and, like
that chain, bring down immense volumes of rain and
vapour on the island." A miniature or reduced copy
of Dr. M'Culloch's picture of the island, which he
sections off into five divisions, will give a sufficiently
minute view of its contour and physical character.
. — The district lying north of the isthmus between
the head of Loch-na-Keal and the mouth of Aross-
water, is all hilly and irregular, yet, though high,
cannot be called mountainous. Geognostically a trap
district, it everywhere presents that terraced aspect
whence the trap formation has its name, and rises in
numerous stages from the shores to a maximum ele-
vation in the interior of from 1,200 to 1,500 feet.
Its coasts are now grassy slopes — now cliffs — and
now rocky terraces, the first of the successive stages
which recede into the interior; and they occasionally
give place, in deep bays, to small sandy beaches,
formed of broken shells. Picturesqueness occurs
charily and at long intervals along the shores, and is
quite unknown in the interior. A few of the pro-
montories and columnar ranges on Loch-na-Keal and
the Sound of Alva, are either clothed with ivy or
decorated by the scattered remains of oak and ash
coppices, and present solitary studies which are not
deficient in interest to an artist; and some basaltic
veins, in the same localities, have been left alone
amidst the erosion and decomposition of the softer
rocks which once enclosed them, and now rise high
above the surface with such resemblance to the ruined
walls of castles, that, at a little distance, only the
experienced eye of a mineralogist can detect their
true character. The district thus noticed contains
the topographical subdivisions of Mornish, Mishnish,
and Quinish. — A second district includes all Gribon
and a small part of Torosay, or the whole of the
peninsular territory lying west of a line drawn from
the head of Loch-Scridon, past the west base of
Benmore to Loch-na-Keal. This consists of just
such trappean terraces as occupy the area of the
former, hut acquires an altitude of not much less
than 2,000 feet, maintains this altitude over an ex-
tensive table-land, and, while descending by inter-
rupted slopes on the south to level shores on Loch-
Scridon, breaks down on the west first in steep de-
clivities, and next in high cliffs, which jointly have
an elevation of at least 1,000 feet above sea-level.
Of various caves in this part of the island which
form objects of attraction to a numerous class of
visiters, one known by the name of Mackinnon's, is
dark, lofty, profound, and imposing on the imagina-
tion, yet presents nothing but an abyss of vacancy
in which the eye vainly seeks for any distinctive
object on which it may momentarily repose. Near
this an open and arched but shallow excavation of
great size penetrates some secondary strata; and in
consequence of titrations of small rills charged with
calcareous matter, is adorned along the room with
huge though rude stalactites. Ash-trees and ivy
mantle over the walls and top of the exterior, and,
in combination with the sublime background of
towering cliffs, produce a scene of great effect and
admirable colouring. The rocky strata of the coast
in the vicinity of the caves resemble an irregu-
lar and huge inclined staircase, the surface looking
to the land, and the outer edges turned upwards at
a considerable angle. A pedestrian, in traversing
them from the beach, laboriously surmounts one step
only perhaps to be conducted to a lower point than
that from which he ascended; and not till he has
crossed a vast number of the alternate elevations
and descents does he find himself on land even but a
small degree higher than the level of the beach — A
third district, which may be designated the moun-
tainous, extends due eastward from the second to
the Sound of Mull, and flanks the coast of that
Sound from the kirk of Torosay, or the castle of
Aros to a point between Macalister's bay and the
head of Loch-Don. Irrespective of the vast and
towering form of Benmore [which see], it attains,
over the greater part of its extent, an average eleva-
tion of nearly 2,300 feet above sea-level ; yet, on
the north and east it gradually subsides in altitude,
and eventually gives place to a belt of flat shore
along the Sound A fourth district occupies all the
area south of the former, and westward to a line ir-
regularly drawn between Shiha and Bunessan in the
Ross of Mull. This territory, in common with all
the others yet named, is trappean ; it possesses, over
far the greater part of its area, uniformly high land;
and in its coast-line it is strongly marked by lofty
cliffs from Inimore to Loch Buy, but eastward of
that bay declines into the flat shores and indented
outline of Loch-Spelis and Loch-Don The last
district is the western part of the Ross of Mull, and
extends inland from the extremity of that long pen-
insula only between 5 and 8 miles. It geognostically
consists of primitive or of granitic and metamorphic
rocks, yet blends with the trap along the line of
contact; and it is either disposed in small and nu-
merous rugged eminences through which the naked
rock very frequently projects, or presents the more
undulating features which attend the schistose vari-
eties of gneiss. — The various modifications of trap
rocks which prevail over the four principal districts,
give place, in the Benmore region, to syenite and a
blue claystone; and they elsewhere have interspersed
among them, in positions of much distortedness, beds
of limestone and sandstone belonging to the lias and
oolitic series. Agates, zeolites, and the other enclosed
minerals of basaltic and amygdaloidal rocks, occur in
considerable numbers; carbonized wood has been
discovered; and hypersthene, though not yet met
with, probably exists. A fine red granite is found
at the promontory of Ross.
Excepting on the small rocky district at the point
of the Ross, and on a few of the summits in the
mountainous tract, the soil of Mull is both deep and