gone when we reached the lead workings, but by shouting and striking matches we succeeded in effecting a junction with the other party, and we proceeded home together narrating our own adventures and listening to those of the others, whilst latterly the writer came in for considerable denunciation for hurrying too rapidly over the boggy path across the hill. Besides the routes already mentioned, some others may be indicated. In March 1892 Gibson and Lester ascended the ridge of the left or S.E. buttress of the corrie, which as seen from the neighbouring rib shows a fascinating saw edge. The S.E. and N.E. faces of Stob Garbh have both furnished good climbs, which have not been fully explored. On one occasion a very strong party was headed off from the N.E. face by the icy condition of the rocks and soil. The ridge between Ben Lui and Beinn a Chleibh presents a wall of rock on the N.W. side which the writer believes has been ascended only at its easiest part, whilst below it good glissading is often to be got. Lastly, by making a circuit to the S.E. from the cairn, and descending towards the Allt Corrie Lui, a steep couloir may be found, named the Fox's Couloir, from the fact of a fox having shown the way down it to the party with which the writer first ascended the N.E. face, as mentioned above, and which was on that occasion descended not without risk and even detriment to the party. This gully may give a good glissade, but care is required at the foot, as the slope steepens and it ends in a steep stony scree. Despite the various prospectings referred to, it will be seen that Ben Lui is not exhausted, and variations at least may still be found. Altogether the N.E. face offers to the climber an amount and variety of excellent climbing which few of our mountains can boast. Taken as a whole, there are very few superiors to this old Ben, who holds his secluded sway at the borders of Perthshire, Argyll, and Dumbarton, and sheds his waters to three several seas. SCOTTISH MOUNTAINS. BY SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., MOUNTAINEERING, besides all the physical stimulus and mental exhilaration that attend it, may be combined with a good deal of hard thinking, and with such calls on the imaginative faculty as vastly enhance its delights. Scottish mountains are excellent examples of the way in which this higher kind of climbing may be called forth. They fall far below an Alpine chain in majesty and loftiness, but there are few ranges of hills which within the same space of country combine such a remarkable variety of interest and attractiveness in regard to diversities of origin and history. Having wandered among these mountains since boyhood, I have come to know them familiarly, both outside and inside, and I propose to jot down in these few pages some reflections which this experience suggests to me. I shall try to show that our mountains differ from each other not only in form and colour, but in the nature of their component materials and in their structure, and that their external contours are dependent on these internal characters. I shall point out further they differ also in origin, not only as regards the materials of which they are made, but also in respect to the evolution of their shapes. shall prove, moreover, that they belong to vastly different periods of the earth's history, some being inconceivably old, others comparatively modern. I 1. The most obvious differences among our mountains are those of form and colour, which even the most untrained eye cannot fail to notice. Yet it is not every traveller or tourist who realises how rich this country is in varied types of mountain form. But let any one with an ordinary share of the observing faculty sail round the west of Scotland and take note of the successive mountain groups that pass before him, and he will acknowledge that the voyage of a couple of hundred miles has been almost as instructive to him as if he had scoured over half of the globe. As he descends the noble estuary of the Clyde, he sees on the right hand the long broken tableland of the Highlands plunging in green declivities to the edge of the sea, and on the left hand the terraced uplands of Ayrshire. As the firth opens out, Arran comes into view, and displays, though on a small scale, a true Alpine type of form, sweeping up in rocky slopes to a line of peaks and spiry crests. Nowhere in Europe does colour come more notably forward in landscape than in the west of Scotland. Apart from the varied and ever-changing hues due to atmospheric causes, there are the extraordinarily rich tones given by the heather, bracken, and deer grass, combined with the greys of the lichencrusted rocks. But the rocks themselves display a remarkably wide range of colour. Even in the Firth of Clyde this variety makes itself felt, but it increases greatly as we pursue our course up the west coast. Who, for example, will ever forget the blaze of purple and orange herbage on the slopes of Arran, from which the grey peaks and russet streaks of débris mount up into the clouds, and the contrast between these colours and the vivid greens and dark browns of the rocky southern end of Bute and the western declivities of the Cumbraes? The points of view from which instructive comparisons and contrasts might be made all along the western seaboard of the mainland are endless. I will cite only three. As we sail up the coast of Cantyre, the mountains of Jura rivet our attention. If the sky is clear, and their huge cones are lit up with sunshine, they gleam as if carved out of snow. Their white rocks, as well as their conical shapes, mark them out from every surrounding group of hills. And this contrast becomes only the more striking as we move northwards and find the white gleaming rocks of Jura prolonged into Scarba, while the neighbouring islets and promontories have their low cliffs and skerries of a livid blue. Amid all the variety of outline and colour which this western coast displays, the culmination of interest is to be found after the Point of Ardnamurchan is passed. Leaving the sea of the Inverness-shire mountains on the right hand, and the verdurous rocks of Muck and Eigg and the blue pyramids of Rum on the left, let us fix our eyes on the |