14. Nov, 2021
The Geology of the Far North West: a Victorian Controversy.
No one can pass through the north west Highlands without being struck by the landscape. My wife can't look at a mountain without being glad she doesn't have to go up it! For Dr Johnson the landscape was 'a wide extent of hopeless sterility', but Thomas Garnet, travelling through Scotland in 1798, found such views 'horribly and fearfully sublime.'
Thomas Pennant, reached Sutherland on his tour in 1772, and commented 'I never saw a country that seems to have been so torn and convulsed; the shock whenever it happened, shook off all that vegetates.' Given what we now know about the geology of the area, Pennant's comment was remarkably accurate. But arriving at this knowledge has been a long journey, involving a fierce scientific debate which lasted some 30 years from the 1850s. It is now known as the Highlands Controversy.
I am no geologist. In an effort to understand the geology of the area, I have been on two field trips with the North West Highland Geopark organisation under Peter Harrison, their excellent geologist and educator, but I still have trouble in differentiating between, say, limestone and gneiss. But I am fascinated by the human interaction that is a part of the controversy, and have built up a collection of items relating to it. I have devoted the last chapter of my book The Immeasurable Wilds to the story of this geological debate. I hope that my limited knowledge of the science enables me to explain the debate without too much complexity. Should you wish to look into the matter in greater detail, David Oldroyd's The Highlands Controversy is the classic account, and you can also find lots of information on the North West Highlands Geopark website.
I shall compile a page on this, my blog website, with a few images by way of introduction to the story. The map above, which is a 1913 first edition Geological Survey map of the area which includes the SE tip of Loch Maree, gives some indication of the complexity of the geology. An understanding of this geology, even at only a basic level, can only increase ones appreciation of this remarkable landscape.
Details of my book, The Immeasurable Wilds can be found at:
https://www.whittlespublishing.com/The_Immeasurable_Wilds