An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Sruth > Volume 2 > No. 63, 21 August 1969

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BI-UNGUAL NEWSPAPER OF CURRENT EVENTS IN THE HIGHLANDS AND THE ISLANDS AND IN SCOTLAND
DI-ARDAOIN, 21 LATHA DE’N LUNASDAL THURSDAY, 21st AUGUST 1969 No. 63 SIXPENCE
Leanaibh
gu dluth
ri cliu bhur
sinnsir
Follow in the footsteps of your forebears
NATIONAL SAVINGS
National Savings Certificates
Post Office Savings Bank
Trustee Savings Banks
SKYE DIATOMITE HOPES CRASH
To Mrs Valerie Craig, The Scottish Council
3 Union Street, Inverness
Please forward copies of ‘ By Bridge to Skye.’
Enclosed remittance for payable to the
Scottish Council.
Name
Address
VISITORS TO 4BERTARFF
Visiting Abertarff House
yesterday after holidaying in
Lewis was Mrs Winnie Ewing
and her family.
Mrs Ewing had been pol¬
ishing up her Gaelic during
her Lewis visit and bought
a copy of the very successful
Gaelfonn Gaelic Language
Course to continue her les¬
sons on her own.
Celebrating her birthday,
was Annabel, the second
member of the Ewing’s three
children.
By Bridge to Skye
The Scottish Council’s definite report on the cost
of building a bridge between Kyle of Lochalsh
and Kyleakin, to be financed partly by government
grant and partly by tolls.
Is now available — price 21/-
To ensure receiving your copy, pipase complete
the form below
dustry, said: “This is very
disappointing news.”
Tne Skye Council of
Social Service, who have been
largely responsible for the re¬
vived interest in tne depones,
will be discussing.. Mr Mac-
Innes’s findings soon. Tne r
secretary. Mrs J. MacBeth,
of Portree, said they had
every confidence in Mr Mac-
Innes's opinion.
Note — Diatomite is a
hydrated silica deposit formed
from the skeleton!? of micro¬
scopic single-celled creatures
known as diatoms.
The feasibility survey into
the prospects for exploiting
diatomite deposits on Skye,
has ended. It was said yester¬
day that a diatomite industry
on the island would not be
viable, even if a large part
of the capital needed to set
it up was provided by Gov¬
ernment grants.
This was the first news of
their findings from Mr
Raonull Maclnnes and an
associate who have financed
the survey of Loch Cuithir,
on the Trotternish peninsula.
Mr Maclnnes is chairman of
a London laboratory appara¬
tus manufacturing firm, and
the survey has oeen Carried
out for him by a Pitlochry
minerologist, Mr Robert
Robertson.
Skye people were disap¬
pointed yesterday when they
heard Mr Maclnnes’s con¬
clusions. It was thought more
than 100,000 tons of diato¬
mite lay beneath the 24-acre
peaty bed of the loch. A new
industry would help check
the island’s rising unemploy¬
ment figures.
Mr Maclnnes explained:
The sort of price one might
expect for Skye diatomite is
a maximum of £20 per ton
processed and delivered to
the Midlands. This is a very
bulky material for its
weight.”
Other maunfacturers with
immense resources would
lower their price to retain
their British sales. “It is not
therefore marginal profita¬
bility, but total loss of in¬
vested capital tnat would
have to be faced in this
project.”
He stressed that his survey
was designed principally to
satisfy himself. His conclu¬
sions were those of only him
and his associate.
--“What is not realised is
that the world diatomite
market is an enormous con¬
cern now of about 1| million
tons a year. Here we are
talking in terms of 5,000 to
8,000 tons of a grade which
is at the lower end of the
scale,” he said.
It would be doing a dis¬
service to the island to
pretend that this was viable.
“I am disappointed personally
because my main idea was
that there might have been
a hope, in some small
measure, of industry being
possible that would help
the unemployment situation
here.”
Major-General Harry Mac¬
donald, of Portree, whose
A. Lean, Pipers Alec Grant and Richard Bierregaard, Drummer (leading) Maurice Couteras
(hidden), tenor drummer Luis Eastman. Three dancers, Martha Grant, Lin Putranera and
Rosemary MacQuillin look on. Taken at an R.A.F. association “ arads ” in June 1969. B-nd
uniforms in MacLean of Duart tartan. Dancers’ uniforms in Campbell of Breadalbane.
father and uncle started tne
first diatomite workings at
Loch Cuithir between 1880
and 1910 as a summer in-
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