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

Till
759
TOB
it requires all its natural fertility and fertilizing
resources to resist the gross vices of the method
of cultivation. Cross ploughing is rarely prac-
tised ; the seed is sown on the first furrows, and
turned down by a light harrow ; and, as the inter-
mediate sod is generally occupied by a line of weeds,
the seed in springing has the appearance of a drilled
crop of alternating weed and grain. Yet wretched
as are both the tillage and the system of cropping, a
large and good produce of barley, oats, and potatoes
is obtained. The chief manure used is drift sea-
weed. The rock which forms the island, and car-
ries its soil, is gneiss, abounds with veins of granite,
and more curiously embedding masses of primitive
limestone. One of the limestone masses, long and
favourably known for the flesh-coloured marble into
which it has been cut for ornamental architecture, is
an irregular rock of about 100 feet in diameter, lying
among the gneiss without stratification or continuity.
In consequence of its hardness, even though cheaper,
ill spite of that inconvenience, than many foreign
marbles of far inferior beauty, it has lost the patron-
age of public caprice, and ceased to be in request.
Its very tint is finely relieved by the dark green
crystals of augite and hornblende which are em-
bedded in it. The deposit is quite unstratified.
Another mass, ten times the size of the former, and
equally irregular, resembles the marble of Iona, in
whiteness, texture, and fracture, yet. is generally im-
pure, and seems to have been quarried only for the
vulgar purpose of building dikes. The most notice-
able mineral substances contained in the rocks of the
island are sahlite, tilanite, tremolite, coccalite, and
sphene. — The hill of Ceanmharra, situated at the
south-west point of the island, and presenting a
mural face to the sea, is perforated with a great num-
ber of caves, some of which are large and thunder-
ingly scoured by the surge, while all are frequented
by innumerable flocks of sea-fowls. Remains of no
fewer (ban 39 watch-towers or forts, within view of
one another, encircle the coast of Tiree and Coll ;
and there are 9 or 10 standing-stones, besides minor
antiquities. The inhabitants relate many Fingalian
and other tales of battles and chieftains; and even
affect to point out the graves of the heroes of their
legends. On an islet, now converted into a penin-
sula, anciently stood a square-turretted castle, ac-
cessible only by a drawbridge ; and, on its ruins
was erected, in 1748, a house for the factor of the
Duke of Argyle, — the sole proprietor of the island.
— The rearing of black cattle is a chief employment ;
and the exportation of them a principal means of
support. Poultry and eggs also are largely exported.
Fishing, very contrary to the prevailing practice in
the Hebrides, engages little attention. Tiree, pro-
portionately to its extent, is more crowdedly peopled
than any other of the Western Islands ; and, owing
chiefly to the rapidity with which its population has
increased, and the ruin of the kelp manufacture on
which a large proportion of them depended mainly
for subsistence, it has shared to a grievous extent in
the distress with which so many of the Hebridean
islands have of late years been visited. Its rental,
during the time of the kelp trade, was £3,000; but
is almost incredibly reduced, no fewer than 400 fa-
milies paying no rent whatever, and 430 persons pay
each no more than from 20 to 40 shillings a-year.
One witness before the Emigration Committee said,
that 2,000 of the inhabitants ought to emigrate, if a
comfortable situation could be assured to them ; and
another said, that from 3,000 to 4,000 might be well
removed. The Duke of Argyle lately spent several
weeks in the island, making himself personally ac-
quainted with its condition; and he is understood to
be planning, or to have already planned, permanent
| arrangements for a better state of things. Annual
fairs are held on the island on the Wednesday before
the Mull fairs of May and October, and the Monday
before the Mull fair of August. Population, in 1808,
3,200; in 1831, 4,453. Houses 949. Assessed pro-
perty, in 1815, £7,0G8.
TOBERMORY, a quoad sacra parish, and a mo-
dern sea- port town on the north-east coast of the
island of Mull. The parish belongs, quoad civilia,
to Kilninian : which see. Population, in 1838,
1,520. The church is a parliamentary one. Patron,
the Crown. Stipend £120; glebe £1.— The town
of Tobermory, in which is segregated most of the
population, stands at the head of a sheltered bay,
3i miles south-west of Auliston-point, where Loch-
Sun;] rt forks off from the sound of Mull, 9 miles south-
east of Ardnamurchan-point,30 north- west by weat of
Oban, 62 north-west by west of Inverary, and 171
west-north-west of Edinburgh. It was built in 1788,
at the same time as Ullapool, by the British fishing
company, as the site of a fishing establishment, and
the rendezvous of the herring vessels. Its name
means ' Mary's well,' and was taken from a foun-
tain on the spot, which was dedicated to the Virgin,
and had much celebrity in the days of popery. The
chief part of the town is arranged in the form of a
crescent; and has a customhouse, an inn, a post-
office, some large houses used for coopers' stores and
other purposes, and upwards of twenty slated dwell-
ing-houses. An upper town surmounts a cliff at the
back of the former, and consists almost wholly of
poor cottages or miserable huts. The church occu-
pies a prominent site, and is, in most views of the
town, a conspicuous object. The harbour or bay is
spacious, and almost completely landlocked ; and is
covered, across the entrance, and at a brief distance,
by Calve island. There are two excellent quays,
the one having two and the other four feet of water
at ebb tide ; the latter was commenced in 1835, at
the expense of Colonel Campbell of Knock. The
town is the seat of a monthly court of the sheriff-
substitute, and the polling-place for Tiree, Coll,
Eig, Muck, Rum, Canna, and the smaller islands of
the Argvleshire Hebrides. As the only town in
Mull, and in a large circumjacent district, both He-
bridean and continental, it possesses much provincial
importance, and is the seat of a considerable domes-
tic trade. In connexion with its customhouse, it is
the place where legal forms are attended to respect-
ing the herring-fishing, and, in consequence, the re-
sort of parties from whom the forms are exacted.
As a sea- port, it is the natural outlet of the surplus
produce of northern Mull; and, being situated on
the route of the steam-vessels between the Clyde
and both Skye and Lewis, it enjoys as good ad-
vantages as if it possessed a steam -boat communi-
cation of its own. It has communication with the
Clyde by steamers, and overland from Oban by In-
verary several times a-week, and also regularly with
Inverness and Skye. A small trade is conducted also
in boat-building. But, in spite of all these circum-
stances, which might seem to work powerfully in
its favour, it must be pronounced, in the aggregate,
the home of inaction, adversity, and indigence.
The object of its erection proved a total failure ;
and the society who built it, though still kept to-
gether as a joint-stock company, do not now en-
courage the fishery, and rather repel than invite
new settlers. The original establishment compre-
hended 2,000 acres of land, which were cut out into
allotments, at low prices, to the tenants of the se-
veral new houses ; and it is alleged to have attracted
as settlers, the indolent rather than the industri-
ous, and to have incited them to care for the pro-
fits of agriculture rather than for those of the fish-