ABBOTSFORD, SCOTLAND. As the residence of Sir Walter Scott, who erected it in the days of his greatest financial success, and as the scene and the cause of his eventual ruin, the castle of Abbotsford must ever retain a picturesque and pathetic hold upon the lover of literature. It is situated on the south bank of the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, and about twenty-eight miles southeast of Edinburgh. Scott’s aim was to erect a great mansion on something like feudal principles, where he would dispense a lordly hospitality akin to that of the ancient nobles whom he loved to celebrate. The scheme was too grand to succeed. The kindly baronet was involved in ruin, and spent his last days in a courageous and almost successful effort to battle against terrible odds. At present Abbotsford has passed out of the hands of his descendants and become a boarding-school for young ladies. But it is still a museum of interesting relics, and on account of its associations is much visited by tourists.
FINGAL’S CAVE, SCOTLAND, one of the most remarkable of all cave formations. It is situated on the Island of Staffa, seven miles off the west coast of Mull. The entire island is almost entirely encircled by cliffs of columnar basalt, hollowed out here and there into caves. Fingal’s, known also as the Great Cave, is the greatest of these. The entrance is almost like that of a huge Gothic Cathedral. A lofty arch, sixty feet high by thirty wide, is supported by columnar ranges of basaltic rock, whose native blackness is whitened with calcareous stalagmite. The cave is two hundred and thirty-two feet deep. Its floor is the sea, which flashes many colored lights upon the ceiling with its pendant clusters of columns, and on the great cavernous sides, with their countless complicated ranges of gigantic columns, beautifully jointed and of the most symmetrical though varied forms.
FORTH BRIDGE, SCOTLAND. The largest and, in many respects, the most magnificent bridge in the world, is that across the Firth of Forth, at Queensbury. Here the estuary of the Forth is divided by the island of Inchgarvie into two channels, whose depth—two hundred feet—precluded the construction of intermediate piers. A design for a gigantic suspension bridge, by Sir Thomas Bouch, had almost been adopted, when the collapse of the Tay bridge, in 1879, led to the abandonment of the project. A new plan was accepted from Benjamin Baker. This was a cantilever bridge of steel. A cantilever is a structure overhung from a fixed base. Work was begun in 1882 and completed in 1889. There are three granite piers, the central one being on the island; and on those piers three double lattice-work cantilevers are poised in line, reaching towards each other, and connected at their extremities by ordinary girders three hundred and fifty feet long, by which the two main spans are completed. These main spans are each seventeen hundred feet long, and the total length of the bridge is eighty-two hundred and ninety-six feet, or a little over one and one-half miles. The under side of the bridge is one hundred and fifty-two feet above high water.
BALMORAL CASTLE, SCOTLAND, the Highland residence of the Queen of England, situated in Braemer, Aberdeenshire. Its situation is of great beauty. It stands on a natural platform nine hundred and twenty-six feet above sea level, which slopes gently and gradually down to the margin of the River Dee. The castle is in the Scottish Baronial style of architecture. It is entirely of granite, and consists of two separate blocks of buildings united by wings. A tower eighty feet high is surmounted by a turret twenty feet higher. The entire estate, including a deer forest, comprises over twenty-five thousand acres. It was purchased by Prince Albert in 1832 from the Earl of Fife. He pulled down the older castle, finding it not exactly suited to the needs of the royal family, and put up the present imposing structure in its place.
LOCH KATRINE (ELLEN’S ISLE), SCOTLAND. The Scotch lakes are famous the world over for their beauty. Loch Katrine is the most famous of them all. It lies in Perthshire; is eight miles in length, and has an average breadth of three quarters of a mile. Ben Venue and Ben An are celebrated mountains on its banks, and it contains a number of exquisite islands. Among the latter is Ellen’s Island, chosen by Sir Walter Scott as the scene of “The Lady of the Lake.” Wordsworth and other poets have thrown the glamour of their genius around Loch Katrine. But it has a more practical use. Its waters, which are remarkably pure, supply the city of Glasgow, twenty-five miles off; being conveyed thither by a series of tunnels, aqueducts and pipes.
