Autobiographical Sketch of James Croll

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I ANCESTRY, BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND SCHOOL DAYS A MONG all the provinces in Scotland, writes Sir Jl. Walter Scott, if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful, it is probable he would name the county of Perth. A native, also, of any other district of...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I ANCESTRY, BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND SCHOOL DAYS A MONG all the provinces in Scotland, writes Sir Jl. Walter Scott, if an intelligent stranger were asked to describe the most varied and the most beautiful, it is probable he would name the county of Perth. A native, also, of any other district of Caledonia, though his partialities might lead him to prefer his native county in the first instance, would certainly class that of Perth in the second, and thus give its inhabitants a fair right to plead that?prejudice apart?Perthshire forms the fairest portion of the northern kingdom. It is long since Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, with that excellent taste which characterises her writings, expressed her opinion that the most interesting district of every country, and that which exhibits the varied beauties of natural scenery in greatest perfection, is that where the mountains sink down upon the champaign, or more level land. The most picturesque, if not the highest hills, are to be found in the county of Perth. The rivers find their way out of the mountainous region by the wildest leaps, and through the most romantic passes connecting the Highlands with the Lowlands. Above, the vegetation of a happier climate and soil is mingled with the magnificent characteristics of mountain scenery; and woods, groves, and thickets in profusion clothe the base of the hills, ascend up the ravines, and mingle with the precipices. It is in such favoured regions that the traveller finds what the poet Gray, or someone else, has termed ' beauty lying in the lap of terror.' From the same advantage of situation, this favoured province presents a variety of the most pleasing character. Its lakes, woods, and mountains vie in beauty with any that the Highland tour exhibits; while Perthshire contains ...