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TAY, THE
and moorlands, the river has become considerably less
equable than at a former period ; it swells, during great
floods, to a magnitude which never in former days
belonged to it ; it subsides, during a continued drought,
to a corresponding diminution of volume ; and, in its
ordinary or mean state, it has very visibly lost some of
its ancient greatness and importance. Though averagely
charged at Perth, as we have seen, with 3640 cubic feet
of water per second, it was reduced, in the course of the
summer of 1819, to 457 cubic feet, and at the close of
the summer of 1835, to a still smaller volume.
Much of the country which now forms the seaboard
of the estuary, and especially the whole of the Carse of
Gowrie, and the lower part of Strathtay, exhibit evidence
of having, at a comparatively recent period, lain under
the sea, and been gradually raised above its level by
depositions from the Tay. After the Carse of Gowrie
became dry land, too, the Tay seems, for a long series of
years, to have made a circle round its N side, along the
foot of the Sidlaw Hills, entering what was then the
Firth of Earn at Invergowrie, and entirely peninsulating
the Carse, or cutting it into a series of islands. Great
modern changes have taken place likewise on all the
â– vale or strata of the Tay, S of the confluence of the
Tummel. Dr Macculloch, from close and various obser-
vations on cuts of corresponding rocks on the opposite
-sides of the stream, and on the harmonising altitude of
series of alluvial terraces in the screens of the valley,
calculates that the ancient level of the river, from
Logierait downward, was about 100 feet above the pre-
sent bed ; and he adds : ' And thus, while it is easy to
see how far the Tay has sunk, it would not be very
difficult to compute the quantity of land or earth that
has been removed and carried forwards towards the sea.
When we look at this enormous waste we need not be
surprised at the formation of the Carse of Gowrie, nor
at the deposits which are still augmenting it ; shoaling
the sea about Dundee, and laying the foundations of
new meadows. For this operation is still going on, and
must go on as long as the Tay shall continue to flow ;
though diminishing in rapidity as the declivity and
consequent velocity of the river itself diminish. If it is
curious to speculate on the period when Perth, had it
then existed, must have been a seaport, and when the
narrow Tay, far above and below it, was a wide arm of
the ocean, it is not less so to consider what the aspect
of Strathtay itself was when the present place of Dun-
keld was buried deep beneath the earth. Nor is it
difficult even to see what it must have been. By laying
our eye on any of the terraces, it is easy to bring the
opposed one in the same plane, and thus to exclude all
the valley beneath, reducing it once more to what it
was when the river was flowing above. These specula-
tions, thus pursued, may interest the artist as well as
the geologist and the geographer ; since, not only
here, but in every deep valley of the Highlands, he
would, in making such trials, be at a loss to recognise
in the original shallow and rude glen, the spacious and
rich valley which is now the seat of beauty and cultiva-
tion. Contemplating, in this manner, not only the
Highland mountains and valleys, but those of the world
at large, we are lost in the magnitude of the changes
which have carried the rains of the Himalaya to the
mouths of the Ganges — which, from the sediments of
the Nile, have formed the land of Egypt — and which
have created, out of the lofty ridges of America, the
plains that now form so large a portion of its continent. '
The Tay, inclusive of its principal tributaries, is by
much the most scenic of the British rivers. Its estuary,
and the lowest 3 or 4 miles of its stream, are a con-
tinued expanse of loveliness, softly screened with
heights or swells of the gentlest beauty. Its vale
from the romantic Hill of Kiunoull, a little below Perth,
to the Pass of Birnam, 2 miles below Dunkeld, is
everywhere lively, frequently brilliant, and occasionally
gorgeous. Its scenery hence to the mouth of the Tum-
mel, as seen from a vantage ground in the vicinity of
Dunkeld, is pronounced by Dr Macculloch singularly
rich and grand, with all its features, for about 6 miles,
TEALING
so minutely detailed before the eye that every part of
its various ornament is most advantageously seen.
'On each hand,' says he, 'rises a long screen of
varied hills, covered with woods in every picturesque
form ; the whole vista terminating in the remoter
mountains, which, equally rich and various, are softened
by the blue haze of the distanoe, as they close in above
the Pass of Killiecrankie. This general view, varied in
many ways by changes of level and of position, forms
the basis of the landscape for some miles ; but so great
are the changes in the middle-grounds, and so various
the foregrounds, that although the same leading char-
acter is observed, the separate scenes are always strongly
distinguished. Many distinct pictures can thus be
obtained, and each of them perfectly adapted for paint-
ing ; so that Strathtay is here an object to charm every
spectator, — him who desires to see everything preserved )
in his portfolio, and him who seeks for nothing in
Nature but beauty, come under what form it may.
' Though the western and upper branch of Strathtay,
from the junction of the Tummel upward to Kenmore,
' is not, perhaps, equal in splendour to the lower and
southern one, it still maintains the same character of
richness throughout ; while, instead of the fiat extended
meadows which mark the latter, it displays a consider-
able undulation of ground. Thus the vale of the Tay,
from Dunkeld even to Kenmore, a space of 25 miles, is
a continued scene of beauty ; a majestic river winding
through a highly wooded and cultivated country, with
a lofty and somewhat parallel mountain boundary,
which is itself cultivated as far as cultivation is admis-
sible, and is everywhere covered with continuous woods
or trees as high as wood can well grow. It contains, of
course, much picturesque scenery ; presenting not only
landscapes of a partial nature, comprising reaches of the
river, or transient views in the valley produced by the
sinuosities of the road, but displaying the whole to its
farthest visible extremity, under aspects which are
varied by the casual variations of level or position, or by
the accidental compositions of the fore or middle
grounds. Where Ben Lawers is seen towering above
all in the remotest distance, these views are peculiarly
magnificent ; nor is anything ever wanting which the
artist could require to give fulness and interest to the
nearer parts of the landscape, where, after all, the chief
interest must always lie.' ' I believe it is but just to
say, that Strathtay is, in point of splendour and rich-
ness, the first of the Scottish valleys.'— Ord. Sur., shs.
53, 54, 55, 46, 47, 48, 49, 1865-77.
Tealing, a Forfarshire parish, whose church stands 64
miles N of Dundee, under which there is a post office.
It is bounded N by Inverarity, E by Inverarity, Murroes,
and a detached section of Dundee, S by Murroes and
Mains and Strathmartine, W by Caputh (detached) and
Auchterhouse, and NW by Glaniis. Its utmost length,
from N to S, is 4§ miles ; its utmost breadth, from E
to W, is 4 miles ; and its area is 7231f acres, of which
4 are water, and 195 belong to a small detached portion,
3 furlongs W of the main body. Tithie Burn traces
much of the southern boundary ; and several rivulets,
rising on the north-western border, run mainly south-
eastward through the interior. Sinking in the SE to
350 feet above sea-level, the surface thence rises north-
westward and northward towards the watershed of the
Sidlaw Hills, attaining510 feet near the parish church, 900
at Balluderon or Craigowl Hill, and 1104 at a nameless
height 2J miles N of the church. Trap occurs, but the
principal rocks are Devonian, mostly grey slaty sand-
stone. ' In the lower lying portion of the parish there
is a good deal of strong rich land, that yields well when
skilfully managed and when the seasons suit. It is a
clayey loam with a subsoil of clay and gravel, in some
parts rather retentive. In part of the hollows there is
also very poor soil, thin, hard, and unproductive, with
very stiff subsoil. There are several instances in this
parish where the land on the one side of the road is
worth 25s. or 30s. an acre, and not worth more than 15s.
or 20s. on the other. On the higher lying parts there
is also a good deal of variety of soil, but in general it is
433
and moorlands, the river has become considerably less
equable than at a former period ; it swells, during great
floods, to a magnitude which never in former days
belonged to it ; it subsides, during a continued drought,
to a corresponding diminution of volume ; and, in its
ordinary or mean state, it has very visibly lost some of
its ancient greatness and importance. Though averagely
charged at Perth, as we have seen, with 3640 cubic feet
of water per second, it was reduced, in the course of the
summer of 1819, to 457 cubic feet, and at the close of
the summer of 1835, to a still smaller volume.
Much of the country which now forms the seaboard
of the estuary, and especially the whole of the Carse of
Gowrie, and the lower part of Strathtay, exhibit evidence
of having, at a comparatively recent period, lain under
the sea, and been gradually raised above its level by
depositions from the Tay. After the Carse of Gowrie
became dry land, too, the Tay seems, for a long series of
years, to have made a circle round its N side, along the
foot of the Sidlaw Hills, entering what was then the
Firth of Earn at Invergowrie, and entirely peninsulating
the Carse, or cutting it into a series of islands. Great
modern changes have taken place likewise on all the
â– vale or strata of the Tay, S of the confluence of the
Tummel. Dr Macculloch, from close and various obser-
vations on cuts of corresponding rocks on the opposite
-sides of the stream, and on the harmonising altitude of
series of alluvial terraces in the screens of the valley,
calculates that the ancient level of the river, from
Logierait downward, was about 100 feet above the pre-
sent bed ; and he adds : ' And thus, while it is easy to
see how far the Tay has sunk, it would not be very
difficult to compute the quantity of land or earth that
has been removed and carried forwards towards the sea.
When we look at this enormous waste we need not be
surprised at the formation of the Carse of Gowrie, nor
at the deposits which are still augmenting it ; shoaling
the sea about Dundee, and laying the foundations of
new meadows. For this operation is still going on, and
must go on as long as the Tay shall continue to flow ;
though diminishing in rapidity as the declivity and
consequent velocity of the river itself diminish. If it is
curious to speculate on the period when Perth, had it
then existed, must have been a seaport, and when the
narrow Tay, far above and below it, was a wide arm of
the ocean, it is not less so to consider what the aspect
of Strathtay itself was when the present place of Dun-
keld was buried deep beneath the earth. Nor is it
difficult even to see what it must have been. By laying
our eye on any of the terraces, it is easy to bring the
opposed one in the same plane, and thus to exclude all
the valley beneath, reducing it once more to what it
was when the river was flowing above. These specula-
tions, thus pursued, may interest the artist as well as
the geologist and the geographer ; since, not only
here, but in every deep valley of the Highlands, he
would, in making such trials, be at a loss to recognise
in the original shallow and rude glen, the spacious and
rich valley which is now the seat of beauty and cultiva-
tion. Contemplating, in this manner, not only the
Highland mountains and valleys, but those of the world
at large, we are lost in the magnitude of the changes
which have carried the rains of the Himalaya to the
mouths of the Ganges — which, from the sediments of
the Nile, have formed the land of Egypt — and which
have created, out of the lofty ridges of America, the
plains that now form so large a portion of its continent. '
The Tay, inclusive of its principal tributaries, is by
much the most scenic of the British rivers. Its estuary,
and the lowest 3 or 4 miles of its stream, are a con-
tinued expanse of loveliness, softly screened with
heights or swells of the gentlest beauty. Its vale
from the romantic Hill of Kiunoull, a little below Perth,
to the Pass of Birnam, 2 miles below Dunkeld, is
everywhere lively, frequently brilliant, and occasionally
gorgeous. Its scenery hence to the mouth of the Tum-
mel, as seen from a vantage ground in the vicinity of
Dunkeld, is pronounced by Dr Macculloch singularly
rich and grand, with all its features, for about 6 miles,
TEALING
so minutely detailed before the eye that every part of
its various ornament is most advantageously seen.
'On each hand,' says he, 'rises a long screen of
varied hills, covered with woods in every picturesque
form ; the whole vista terminating in the remoter
mountains, which, equally rich and various, are softened
by the blue haze of the distanoe, as they close in above
the Pass of Killiecrankie. This general view, varied in
many ways by changes of level and of position, forms
the basis of the landscape for some miles ; but so great
are the changes in the middle-grounds, and so various
the foregrounds, that although the same leading char-
acter is observed, the separate scenes are always strongly
distinguished. Many distinct pictures can thus be
obtained, and each of them perfectly adapted for paint-
ing ; so that Strathtay is here an object to charm every
spectator, — him who desires to see everything preserved )
in his portfolio, and him who seeks for nothing in
Nature but beauty, come under what form it may.
' Though the western and upper branch of Strathtay,
from the junction of the Tummel upward to Kenmore,
' is not, perhaps, equal in splendour to the lower and
southern one, it still maintains the same character of
richness throughout ; while, instead of the fiat extended
meadows which mark the latter, it displays a consider-
able undulation of ground. Thus the vale of the Tay,
from Dunkeld even to Kenmore, a space of 25 miles, is
a continued scene of beauty ; a majestic river winding
through a highly wooded and cultivated country, with
a lofty and somewhat parallel mountain boundary,
which is itself cultivated as far as cultivation is admis-
sible, and is everywhere covered with continuous woods
or trees as high as wood can well grow. It contains, of
course, much picturesque scenery ; presenting not only
landscapes of a partial nature, comprising reaches of the
river, or transient views in the valley produced by the
sinuosities of the road, but displaying the whole to its
farthest visible extremity, under aspects which are
varied by the casual variations of level or position, or by
the accidental compositions of the fore or middle
grounds. Where Ben Lawers is seen towering above
all in the remotest distance, these views are peculiarly
magnificent ; nor is anything ever wanting which the
artist could require to give fulness and interest to the
nearer parts of the landscape, where, after all, the chief
interest must always lie.' ' I believe it is but just to
say, that Strathtay is, in point of splendour and rich-
ness, the first of the Scottish valleys.'— Ord. Sur., shs.
53, 54, 55, 46, 47, 48, 49, 1865-77.
Tealing, a Forfarshire parish, whose church stands 64
miles N of Dundee, under which there is a post office.
It is bounded N by Inverarity, E by Inverarity, Murroes,
and a detached section of Dundee, S by Murroes and
Mains and Strathmartine, W by Caputh (detached) and
Auchterhouse, and NW by Glaniis. Its utmost length,
from N to S, is 4§ miles ; its utmost breadth, from E
to W, is 4 miles ; and its area is 7231f acres, of which
4 are water, and 195 belong to a small detached portion,
3 furlongs W of the main body. Tithie Burn traces
much of the southern boundary ; and several rivulets,
rising on the north-western border, run mainly south-
eastward through the interior. Sinking in the SE to
350 feet above sea-level, the surface thence rises north-
westward and northward towards the watershed of the
Sidlaw Hills, attaining510 feet near the parish church, 900
at Balluderon or Craigowl Hill, and 1104 at a nameless
height 2J miles N of the church. Trap occurs, but the
principal rocks are Devonian, mostly grey slaty sand-
stone. ' In the lower lying portion of the parish there
is a good deal of strong rich land, that yields well when
skilfully managed and when the seasons suit. It is a
clayey loam with a subsoil of clay and gravel, in some
parts rather retentive. In part of the hollows there is
also very poor soil, thin, hard, and unproductive, with
very stiff subsoil. There are several instances in this
parish where the land on the one side of the road is
worth 25s. or 30s. an acre, and not worth more than 15s.
or 20s. on the other. On the higher lying parts there
is also a good deal of variety of soil, but in general it is
433
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