Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/12

 than that which arises from the want of an accurate detailed map of its surface, its mountains, rivers, bays, and lakes; data, without which it is extremely difficult to give such particulars as could be desired of the situations, boundaries, and connections of its several rocks; a difficulty too not a little increased by the utter impossibility of obtaining the vernacular names from the natives, who are neither well informed on the subject nor very well agreed in their application. The want of ascertained distances and of fixed points of reference, arising from the vacant state of many tracts and the loose manner in which the Highlanders compute their miles, add not a little the trouble of giving precise descriptions.

If we may trust to the latitudes and longitudes laid down, and, they are the only documents on which we have to rely, the extreme length of this island is about forty-five miles, and its extreme breadth about twenty. Its form is that of an irregular parallelogram, so much intersected by deep sea lochs that scarcely any point on its surface is five miles distant from the sea. It is divided into geographical districts, which, as they bear some relation to the physical divisions of its surface, and will be necessary points of reference its describing its structure, I shall here enumerate.

Of these, the southernmost is the district and parish of Sleat, a tract of moderate and irregular elevation, terminating in the group of mountains which approaches the main land, and which, in conjunction with Glen Elg, forms the narrow passage of the inner sound. This is bounded to the north by the parish of Strath, an open irregular valley, intersecting the island from N.E. to S.W. and separating the before mentioned district from the remainder of the island, more particularly from the group of mountains which occupies its middle division. A tract of uneven land extends from Broadford along the eastern shore to the eastern Loch Eynort, and