ountry. Such was the case in the great floods of Moray, which happened
in the year 1829, of which the following is a brief abstract, derived
chiefly from Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's interesting volume on this subject,
published soon after the calamity for the benefit of the sufferers.

The province of Moray, or Murray, is a large district in the north-east
of Scotland, bounded by the Moray Frith on the north-east and north. The
eastern half of the province is lower than the western; in which the
mountains render the whole country characteristically highland. On the
north is a long belt of lowlands, about 240 square miles in extent: this
is greatly diversified with ridgy swells and low hilly ranges, lying
parallel to the frith, and intersected by the rivers Ness, Nairn,
Findhorn, Lossie, and Spey running across it to the sea. The grounds
behind the lowlands appear, as seen from the coast, to be only a narrow
ridge of bold alpine heights, rising like a rampart to guard the
orchards, and woods, and fields: but these really form long and broad
mountain masses, receding, in all the wildness and intricacy of highland
arrangement, to a distant summit line. Some of the broad clifts and long
narrow vales of these mountains form beautiful and romantic pictures;
while many of their declivities are practicable to the plough or other
instruments of cultivation; so that the bottoms and the reclaimed or
reclaimable sides of the valleys are estimated to comprehend about
one-third of the entire area. The lowlands of Moray have long been
celebrated for mildness and luxuriousness of climate, and also for a
certain dryness of atmosphere, which seems to have some intimate
connexion with the mournful calamity about to be described. The high
broad range of mountains on the south-west shelter the lowlands from the
prevailing winds of the country, and exhaust many light vapours and
thinly-charged clouds, which might otherwise produce gentle rains; but,
for just the same reason, they powerfully attract whatever long broad
streams of heavy clouds are sailing through the sky, and, among the
gullies and the upland glens, amass their discharged contents with
amazing rapidity, and in singular largeness of volume. The rivers of the
country are, in consequence, peculiarly liable to become flooded. One
general and tremendous outbreak, in 1829, "afforded an awful exhibition
of the peculiarities of the climate, and will long be remembered, in
connexi