XII. The Geology of Loch Lomond

T he advent of the British Association recalls the absence of any general account of the geology of Loch Lomond, although it is one of the most attractive features in the Glasgow district. It is the largest lake in Britain (length 21 miles; breadth ½-¾ mile at the northern end, and 4½ miles at the southern; mean breadth 1¼ miles: area 27½ sq. miles); it is the third deepest (623 ft., when its surface level was 23.9 ft.), and its floor descends 600 ft. below sea level. Its scenery is unsurpassed among British lakes, from the contrast between the grandeur of the upper part, which has the typical features of a fiord, and the picturesque incidents of its southern end, which has the sinuous shores, gently sloping banks, many headlands and islands of a fiord. McCulloch has declared (1824, vol. I, pp. 209, 210) “Loch Lomond is unquestionably the pride of our lakes; incomparable in its beauty as in its dimensions, exceeding all others in variety as it does in extent and splendour, and uniting in itself every style of scenery which is found in the other lakes of the Highlands. . . . .As, with regard to the superiority of Loch Lomond to all the other lakes, there can be no question, so, in the highly contrasted characters of its upper and lower portions, it offers points of comparison with the whole; with all those at least which possess any picturesque beauty; for it has no blank.” Its epithet of This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract