subjoined. The coast is also rich in Algae. From the shores of the Linnhe Loch, and especially the vicinity of Appin, the late Captain Carmichael made to this department of botanical science many important contributions which have given an honoured place to his name in the authoritative books on sea-weeds.

* Of the following Mollusca 110 species were obtained during a few hours' dredging at Oban on the 8th and 9th of September, 1856, by Dr. Dickie, Professor of Natural History in the Queen's College, Belfast, who has obligingly prepared the list for these pages. The greatest depth dredged was 25 fathoms; the greatest distance from land not exceeding 2 miles. A few additional species noted in Forbes & Hanley's British Mollusca, as having been taken by the dredge at Oban, by the late Professor Edward Forbes, Mr. M'Andrew, Mr. Barlee, and others, have been incorporated with Dr. Dickie's list; and if to these were added many other species common everywhere, the number of marine Mollusca to be got at Oban cannot fall much short of 200 species:

32

KERRERA AND GYLEN CASTLE.

ISLAND OF KERRERA.

GYLEN CASTLE.

Kerrera is easily approached by boat, and a regular ferry is established at a narrow part of the Sound, constituting a portion of the ferry to Mull. The island is not without geological interest, as epitomising the rocks on the neighbouring mainland, which are here fractured and commingled in an extraordinary manner. The surface is one unvarying succession of heights and hollows, which renders walking very fatiguing. The lowest bed in the island is clay-slate, which crops out on the south-west shore; next succeeds the sandstone conglomerate, (including fragments of limestone, quartz, trap, and primary rocks,) observed at the southern extremity; and over this in the interior are piled superincumbent masses of greenstone, passing into basalt, clinkstone, compact felspar, porphyry, and amygdaloid. The trap frequently rises in abrupt and precipitous dikes. The coast all around bears obvious marks of elevation, the old sea-beach rising about 30 feet above the present shore. From the uplands of Kerrera a noble prospect is obtained inland, towards the magnificent ranges of mountains girding the Linnhe Loch; and seaward, embracing many of the more striking features of the

"Hebrid Isles,

Placed far amid the melancholy main."

The most picturesque object in Kerrera is Gylen Castle, perched upon a wild promontory at the southern extremity of the island, against which the sea has rolled in from the open Atlantic in ancient times, channelling the cliff of conglomerate through and through, and laying bare the dark underlying slaty rocks. The scene is one of savage and desolate grandeur. Like other castles in the

KERRERA AND GYLEN CASTLE.

33

Hebrides of which the date is unknown, Gylen is said to have been built by the Danes; but with much greater probability its origin is held to be coeval with that of Dunolly, Dunstaffnage, Duart, Ardtornish, and other castles which were reared by the Highland chieftains after the expulsion of the Norse, and all of which have architectural features in common. * The walls are still sharply defined, and the edifice appears as if it had been dismantled by fire. The castle was a stronghold of the M'Dougalls of Lorn, and was besieged and captured in 1647, during the civil wars, by a detachment of the enemy sent to Argyleshire under General Leslie.

The island possesses historical interest from its having been the place where Alexander II. died in 1249, from a fever caught in the dog-days of that summer, while at the island on his way to quell an insurrection that had broken out among the western islanders, who refused to do homage to Alexander on the plea of reserving their loyalty for Haco, King of Norway. Our venerable Wintoun refers to this event in his usual quaint way, but without naming the place where Alexander died :

"A thowsand twa hundyre fourty and nyne
Yheris, fra the suet Virgyne

Delyvere was of hyr a Swne

God and man, the dayis ware dwne
Of Second Alysandyre, oure Kyng
That Scotland had in governyng."

An ancient stone patera and arrow-heads of flint have been picked up in Kerrera; and the late Mr. Cameron, farmer, Ardentrive, on driving his ploughshare through a part of his farm on the north side of the island, came upon an ancient place of sepulture, the existence of which had not previously been conjectured.

The writer of these pages has submitted the question of the supposed Danish origin of Gylen Castle to Mr. J. B. Simpson, the librarian of Stirling's Library, Glasgow, whose well-known antiquarian attainments give weight to his opinion on the subject. He says "I have looked over many works regarding the island of Kerrera, but in none of them can I find anything to bear out such a supposition, but indeed none of them mention the old castle at all. We find the first Danish incursion to have been in 787, when they plundered Lindesferne and Weremouth. Their raids go on with great pertinacity, and in 925 they are assisted in one of their inroads by the Scots. In 1031, Canute defeats Malcolm, King of Scotland, and the same northern invaders overran the coasts of Argyleshire. In the 'Itinerarium Septentrionale' several places are mentioned where Danish remains were to be found in Scotland, in 1727, but these are principally in Fifeshire; and no notice is taken of any such remains about the west of Scotland."

34

DUNSTAFFNAGE-LOCH ETIVE.

DUNSTAFFNAGE CASTLE.

The historical interest and charming situation of Dunstaffnage Castle render it a favourite resort of visitors to Oban, from which it is distant about three miles. It is built upon a promontory of hard schistose sandstone or conglomerate, where the waters of Loch Etive debouche into the Linnhe Loch. The castle commands a scene of beauty and magnificence unrivalled even in the Highlands for its interchange of mountain and valley, wood and water, island and mainland. Dunstaffnage looks out to the westward upon the green and fertile fields of Lismore; beyond which tower the mountains of Mull, with the ranges of "the streamy Morven," Kingairloch and Ardgower stretching towards the north, till they are lost amongst the hills which gird around that monarch of the Scottish mountains, Ben Nevis. Within a short distance of the castle is Connel Ferry, where the channel of Loch Etive becomes narrowed by the approximation of the banks, from a breadth of a mile to a space of two hundred yards, causing the tide, which rises here to a height of fourteen feet, to ebb and flow with prodigious impetuosity. Even this narrow passage is interrupted by a ledge of rock, the top of which becomes visible at half tide, and over this impediment the current surges with resistless force, and with a noise which is sometimes heard, even in calm weather, at the distance of several miles, a circumstance noticed, with his usual accuracy, by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lord of the Isles," where he introduces the following notice of the ancient palace of Dunstaffnage in connection with the early period of Scottish history to which it belongs:

"Daughter," she said, "these seas behold,
Round twice an hundred islands roll'd,
From Hirt, that hears their northern roar,
To the green Islay's fertile shore;
Or mainland turn, where many a tower
Owns thy bold brother's feudal power
Each on its own dark cape reclined,
And listening to its own wild wind,
From where Mingarry, sternly placed,
O'erawes the woodland and the waste.
To where Dunstaffnage hears the raging
Of Connel with his rocks engaging."

The picturesque aspects of Loch Etive have been vigorously and truthfully delineated by the pen of Christopher North, (the late Professor John Wilson of Edinburgh,) part of whose description is here introduced:-" Loch Etive, between the ferries of Connel