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The following text came originally from a 1911 Encyclopedia
Aberdeenshire, a north-eastern county of Scotland, bounded north and east by the North Sea, south by Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth, and west by Inverness and Banff. It has a coast-line of 65 miles (105 km), and is the sixth Scottish county in area, occupying 5,107 km˛. The county is generally hilly, and from the south-west, near the centre of Scotland, the Grampians send out various branches, mostly to the north-east.
Popular geography divides the traditional shire into five districts:
- Mar, mostly between the Dee and Don, which nearly covers the southern half of the county and contains the city of Aberdeen. It is mountainous, especially Braemar, which contains the greatest mass of elevated land in the British Isles. The Dee valley has sandy soil, the Don valley loamy.
- Formartine, between the lower Don and Ythan, has a sandy coast, which is succeeded inland by a clayey, fertile, tilled tract, and then by low hills, moors, mosses and tilled land.
- Buchan lies north of the Ythan, and comprising the north-east of the county, is next in size to Mar, parts of the coast being bold and rocky, the interior bare, low, flat, undulating and in places peaty. On the coast, six miles (10 km) south of Peterhead, are the Bullers of Buchan - a basin in which the sea, entering by a natural arch, boils up violently in stormy weather. Buchan Ness is the most easterly point of Scotland.
- The Garioch, pronounced "the geeree", in the centre of the shire, comprises a beautiful, undulating, loamy, fertile valley, formerly called the granary of Aberdeen.
- Strathbogie, occupying a considerable area south of the Deveron, mostly consists of hills, moors and mosses.
The mountains provide the most striking of the physical features of the county. Ben Macdhui, 1309 m (4296 ft), a magnificent mass, the second highest mountain in the United Kingdom, Braeriach (4248), Cairntoul, 1293 m (4241 ft), Ben-na-bhuaird, 1196 m (3924 ft), Ben Avon,1171 m (3843 ft), "dark" Lochnagar, 1154 m (3786 ft), the subject of a well-known song by Byron, Cairn Eas, 1084 m (3556 ft), Sgarsoch, 1037 m (3402 ft), Culardoch 900 m (2953 ft), are the principal heights in the division of Mar. Farther north rise the Buck of Cabrach, 722 m (2368 ft) on the Banffshire border, Tap o' Noth, 558 m (1830 ft), Bennachie, 518 m (1698 ft), a beautiful peak which from its central position is a landmark visible from many different parts of the county, and which is celebrated in John Imlah's song, O gin I war faur the Gadie rins, and Foudland, 466 m (1529 ft). The chief rivers are the Dee, 90 miles (145 km) long; the Iyon, 82 miles (132 km); the Ythan, 37 miles (60 km), with mussel-beds at its mouth; the Ugie, 20 miles (32 km), and the Deveron, 62 miles (100 km), partly on the boundary of Banffshire. The rivers abound with salmon and trout, and the pearl mussel occurs in the Ythan and Don. A valuable pearl in the Scottish crown is said to be from the Ythan. Loch Muick, the largest of the few lakes in the county, 399 m (1310 ft) above the sea, 2.5 miles (4 km) long and 1/3 to ˝ miles (500 to 800 m) broad, lies some 8˝ miles (14 km) southwest of Ballater, and has Altnagiuthasach, a royal shooting-box, near its south-western end. Loch Strathbeg, six miles (10 km) southeast of Fraserburgh, is only separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land. There are noted chalybeate springs at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Pannanich near Ballater.
1 Geology
The greater part of the county is composed of crystalline schists belonging to the metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Highlands. In the upper parts of the valleys of the Dee and the Don they form well-marked groups, of which the most characteristic are (1) the black schists and phyllites, with calcflintas, and a thin band of tremolite limestone, (2) the main or Blair Atholl limestone, (3) the quartzite. These divisions are folded on highly inclined or vertical axes trending north-east and south-west, and hence the same zones are repeated over a considerable area. The quartzite is generally regarded as the highest member of the series. Excellent sections showing the component strata occur in Glen Clunie and its tributary valleys above Braemar. Eastwards down the Dee and the Don and northwards across the plain of Buchan towards Rattray Head and Fraserburgh there is a development of biotite gneiss, partly of sedimentary and perhaps partly of rock origin. A belt of slate which has been quarried for roofing purposes runs along the west border of the county from Turriff by Auchterless and the Foudland Hills towards the Tap o' Noth near Gartly. The metamorphic rocks have been invaded by igneous materials, some before, and by far the larger series after the folding of the strata. The basic types of the former are represented by the sills of epidiorite and hornblende gneiss in Glen Muick and Glen Callater, which have been permeated by granite and pegmatite in veins and lenticle s, often foliated. The later granites subsequent to the plication of the schists have a wide distribution on the Ben Macdhui and Ben Avon range, and on Lochnagar; they stretch eastwards from Ballater by Tarland to Aberdeen and north to Bennachie. Isolated masses appear at Peterhead and at Strichen. Though consisting mainly of biotite granite, these later intrusions pass by intermediate stages into diorite, as in the area between Balmoral and the head-waters of the Gairn. The granites have been extensively quarried at Rubislaw, Peterhead and Kemnay. Serpentine and troctolite , the precise age of which is uncertain, occur at the Black Dog rock north of Aberdeen, at Belhelvie and near Old Meldrum. Where the schists of sedimentary origin have been pierced by these igneous intrusions, they are charged with contact minerals such as sillimanite, cordierite, kyanite and andalusite. Cordierite-bearing rocks occur near Ellon, at the foot of Bennachie, and on the top of the Buck of Cahrach. A banded and mottled calc- silicate hornfel s occurring with the limestone at Iyerry Falls, west-northwest of Braemar, has yielded malacolite , wollastonite, brown idocrase , garnet, sphene and hornblende. A larger list of minerals has been obtained from an exposure of limestone and associated beds in Glen Gairn, about four miles (6 km) above the point where that river joins the Dee. Narrow belts of Old Red Sandstone, resting unconformably on the old platform of slates and schists, have been traced from the north coast at Peterhead by Turriff to Fyvie, and also from Huntly by Gartly to Kildrummy Castle. The strata consist mainly of conglomerates and sandstones, which, at Gartly and at Rhyme, are associated with lenticular bands of andesite indicating contemporaneous volcanic action. Small outliers of conglomerate and sandstone of this age have recently been found in the course of excavations in Aberdeen. The glacial deposits, especially in the belt bordering the coast between Aberdeen and Peterhead, furnish important evidence. The ice moved eastwards off the high ground at the head of the Dee and the Don, while the mass spreading outwards from the Moray Firth invaded the low plateau of Buchan; but at a certain stage there was a marked defection northwards parallel with the coast, as proved by the deposit of red clay north of Aberdeen. At a later date the local glaciers laid down materials on top of the red clay. The committee appointed by the British Association proved that the Greensand, which has yielded a large suite of Cretaceous fossils at Moreseat, in the parish of Cruden, occurs in glacial drift, resting probably on granite. The strata from which the Moreseat fossils were derived are not now found in place in that part of Scotland, but Mr Jukes Brown considers that the horizon of the fossils is that of the lower Greensand of the Isle of Wight or the Aptien stage of France. Chalk flints are widely distributed in the drift between Fyvie and the east coast of Buchan. At Plaidy a patch of clay with Liassic fossils occurs. At several localities between Logie Coldstone and Dinnet a deposit of diatomite (Kieselguhr) occurs beneath the peat.
