Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad

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: III. THE BARON'S STONE OF KILLOCHAN.1 On a gentle green declivity that slopes down to the Water of Girvan, and within sight of the broad Firth of Clyde, which the Girvan enters only three miles farther down the valley, stands a large gray block of granite, known in the district as the Baron's Stone of...
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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: III. THE BARON'S STONE OF KILLOCHAN.1 On a gentle green declivity that slopes down to the Water of Girvan, and within sight of the broad Firth of Clyde, which the Girvan enters only three miles farther down the valley, stands a large gray block of granite, known in the district as the Baron's Stone of Killochan. From this stone, looking seaward, on a clear day, when a breeze from the north-west has freshened the Firth into deepest azure, you can see, far away beyond the bold headlands of Carrick, the long blue lines of the hills of Antrim. And if you go but a few yards up the hill you may trace these faint promontories vanishing into the west, and then the long low hills of Cantyre bounding the western horizon, while in the midst of the wide stretch of sea Ailsa Craig lifts its scarred sides 1100 feet above the surf that beats about their base. The nearer landscape is formed by the valley of the Girvan, narrow and straight, with a ridge of green hills about 1000 feet high on the south side, a range of lower wooded eminences on the north, and the river winding in endless curves along the bottom. 1 Macmillan's Magazine, XVII., 1868. Looking up this valley, the eye wanders with delight over a mingled grouping of woodland and meadow, revealing here and there a reach of the blue stream and a strip of soft bright pasture. The woods climb up boldly along the hillsides, overshadowing every little dingle and watercourse, and so sweeping onwards up the valley, in every tint of green, and every variety of mass and outline, until a bend of the hills closes in the view. Even as a piece of scenery, this vale of the Girvan, though less known than many others in the lowlands of Scotland, has a charm which these often want. There is one respect, at least, wherein it has a peculiar inte...