immutable photos on Flickr

Portrait Of A Prince by Little Queen Gaou

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Dimitri Vin Dracul - Taeyang Dracks Full Custo by Tsubasa

« Je ne compte plus ni les jours, ni les mois, ni les années… Le temps n’a plus d’importance… J’ai du vivre l’équivalent de deux vies humaines… La Roumanie ne me correspond plus. Il faut que je voyage, que je découvre d’autres terres et cultures, mais surtout je dois faire oublier mon immuable identité. Mon visage reste gravé sur quelques portraits tandis que mon corps a décidé de rester de marbre face aux ravages du temps. Londres me tente beaucoup ; son climat sera différent de celui auquel je suis habitué... Je crois que nous sommes en 1830. J’ai investi dans un appartement en centre ville, d’ailleurs celle-ci est en ébullition. Une nouvelle ère se prépare. En revanche je crois qu’il me sera difficile d’adopter dans les premiers mois, la mode du moment. Je vous abandonne… Je suis attendu dans un club pour boire un verre et débattre sur les dernières actualités. Quelques mondanités me feront du bien… »

Le prince s’avance avec un pas gracile et léger sur les pavés de la ville, son regard semble emplit d’une assurance qui semblait perdue. Son allure et sa veste au vent, on pourrait croire qu’il survole l’allée, mais il n’en est rien. Enfin Dimitri retrouve de sa noblesse, mais il en faudra plus pour lui ôter cette aura de mystère voilant ce charmant regard. Il ignore encore tout de ses charmes et de ce que la vie peut lui offrir. Une nouvelle société aux codes vestimentaires et de bienséances si différents de la royauté à l’état brut ; et surtout une effervescence pour les projets de gares et autres technologies… Londres renaît, et le petit prince avec.

"I do not count anymore days, nor months, nor years ... The time does not matter anymore ... I had to live the equivalent of two human lives ... Romania no longer corresponds to me. I must travel, discover other lands and cultures, but above all I must forget my immutable identity. My face remains engraved on some portraits while my body has decided to remain marble against the ravages of time. London tempts me a lot; its climate will be different from the one I'm used to ... I think we are in 1830. I invested in an apartment in the city center, besides it is in turmoil. A new era is coming. However I think it will be difficult to adopt in the first few months, the fashion of the moment. I'm leaving you ... I'm waiting in a club to have a drink and discuss the latest news. Some worldly things will do me good ... "

The prince advances with a graceful and light step on the cobblestones of the city, his look seems filled with an assurance which seemed lost. His pace and jacket in the wind, you might think he flies over the aisle, but it is not. At last Dimitri regains his nobility, but it will take more to remove this aura of mystery veiling this charming look. He is still unaware of his charms and what life can offer him. A new society with dress codes and proprieties so different from royalty in its raw state; and especially an excitement for station projects and other technologies ... London is reborn, and the little prince with.

Fall Of Foyers, Highlands, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

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The Falls of Foyers are two waterfalls on the River Foyers, which feeds Loch Ness, in Highland, Scotland. They are located on the lower portion of the River Foyers, and consist of the upper falls, with a drop of 46 feet (14 m) and the lower falls, which drop 98 feet (30 m).

The falls were a popular destination for tourists using the pleasure steamers operating on Loch Ness, but in 1895, the North British Aluminium Company began building an aluminium smelting plant, which required large amounts of electricity. The hydro-electric station at the plant took large volumes of water from the River Foyers from an intake just above the falls, significantly reducing their flow. The plant was built without the need for Parliamentary approval, because the company bought the Lower Foyers estate, through which the river ran, and they were thus able to ignore the public outcry at the spoiling of an amenity. The works operated until 1967, with the original turbines which generated 3.75 MW remaining in use until the works closed.

The 1895 scheme had dammed Loch Garth and raised its level by 20 feet (6.1 m). Because it then joined Loch Farraline, the reservoir was renamed Loch Mhòr. This became the upper reservoir for a pumped-storage hydro-electric scheme when the newly closed works was taken over by the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board. They installed a 5 MW turbine at the aluminium works, and constructed a tunnel from Loch Mhòr to feed a new power station located further to the north on the shore of Loch Ness. This has a capacity of 300 MW, and to preserve the amenity of the area, underground cables carry the power to a switching station some 3,000 feet (910 m) from the power station site. Further reductions to the flow over the falls have occurred as a result of diverting the River E into Loch Mhòr, and channelling most of the flow of the River Fechlin to it as well. Both formerly fed into the River Foyers, and hence the falls.

The falls influenced Robert Addams, a travelling lecturer in natural philosophy, to write a paper in 1834 about the motion aftereffect. He observed that after watching the waterfall for a while, nearby rocks appeared to move upwards.

The flow over the falls has been much reduced since 1895 when North British Aluminium Company built an aluminium smelting plant on the shore of Loch Ness which was powered by electricity generated by the river. Artist Mary Rose Hill Burton, who was active in the unsuccessful resistance against the smelting plant, made many drawings and paintings of the falls before the plant was built, to capture the landscape in nature before it was lost.

Aluminium was first recognised in the early 1800s, and processes for extracting it from Bauxite ore were developed during the nineteenth century. The most promising was the Heroult-Hall process, separately developed by P T L Heroult in France and C M Hall in America in 1886-1887, but it required large amounts of electricity. The rights to using the process in Britain were obtained by the British Aluminium Company, which was formed in 1894. To produce a ton of aluminium required around 24 MWh of power, and the idea of obtaining cheap hydro-electricity to produce it was suggested. The company identified the Falls of Foyers as a possible site, and bought the Lower Foyers estate, covering some 8,000 acres (32 km2), together with water rights from neighbouring areas. This allowed them to create a hydro-electric scheme without needing to obtain Parliamentary approval, and to ignore public opposition to the effects it would have on local amenities. The River Foyers ran through a gorge to the almost vertical Lower Falls, which was a beauty spot, and was a stopping point for tourists using the MacBrayne pleasure steamers running along the Caledonian Canal from Fort William to Inverness.

Construction began in 1895. Loch Garth was modified by a concrete and masonry dam at its south-western end, together with an earth embankment. The concrete section is 690 feet (210 m) long and around 23 feet (7 m) tall, or possibly 760 feet (232 m) long and around 30 feet (9 m) tall. The dam raised the water level of Loch Garth by 20 feet (6.1 m), resulting in it joining Loch Farraline, and the combined storage reservoir, which was 4.5 miles (7.2 km) long, was renamed Loch Mhòr. Water from the reservoir was conveyed along the original course of the River Foyers to the top of the Upper Falls of Foyers. From there a tunnel was cut through solid rock for 0.5 miles (0.80 km) and the water continued through cast iron pipes to the generating station. The pipes were 30 inches (76 cm) in diameter, and were laid in a trench, to be covered with sand. This provided a head of 350 feet (110 m) to the turbines, and although there was some debate as to whether cast iron pipes could withstand such pressure, no issues were experienced. The water drove five Girard turbines connected to Oerlikon direct current generators, which could produce a total of 3.75 MW. This was sufficient for the production of aluminium, and some 200 tons per year were produced from June 1896. It was a new product, and with production exceeding demand, the power was also used to produce calcium carbide, and experiments were carried out to manufacture ferro-silicon, carborundum, cerium, magnesium, and precious stones.

The plant at Foyers steadily improved in efficiency, as the Heroult-Hall process was refined, and by 1904, world demand for aluminium had increased sufficiently that production of calcium carbide ceased, and the plant only produced aluminium. However, larger plants built subsequently at Kinlochleven and Fort William were more efficient, and from 1954, the plant was used to refine aluminium produced at those sites, by remelting it and removing impurities, to produce "super purity" aluminium. This eventually became uneconomic, and the plant shut in 1967. The Girard vertical shaft Pelton wheels, which had been installed in 1896 to provide power at 65 volts and 8000 amps, were used until the plant closed.

The site was acquired by the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board soon after the aluminium plant closed in 1967. The Girard turbines were replaced by a 5MW generator located in the main building.

Angus Fulton had been the Chief Civil and Hydraulic Engineer for the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board almost from its inception. He had considered that Foyers would be a suitable site for a 60MW conventional hydroelectric scheme, but following the completion of the Hunterston A nuclear power station, the Joint Planning Committee that advised both the Board and the South of Scotland Electricity Board, had recommended that a 300MW pumped storage scheme was needed next. By that time Fulton had been succeeded by K R Vernon, an engineer with wide experience, that included working on the construction of another pumped storage scheme at Cruachan. He was an enthusiastic advocate for pumped storage schemes, as they complemented large thermal power stations such as Hunterston.

Plans for the Foyers scheme were published in 1968, and they were the fortieth construction scheme that the Board had promoted. Loch Mhòr would be the upper reservoir and Loch Ness the lower reservoir. The catchment for Loch Mhòr was about 30 square miles (78 km2), but this would be increased to 80 square miles (210 km2) by diverting most of the flow of the River Fechlin and the River E into the loch. Like Cruachan, the system would be a hybrid, where about 25 percent of its output would be derived from water flowing from the catchment into Loch Ness, and the remainder would be from the pumped storage element. The project was estimated to cost about £106 million, and made good economic sense, since the cost per kW installed was £35.2, compared to around £50 for a thermal station of a similar size. The plans were laid before Parliament in February 1969 and approved in April.

The rock between Loch Mhòr and Loch Ness is heavily fractured, making tunnelling difficult, and there was only one place where the ground was sufficiently high to accommodate a surge shaft. This was at Tom an Eig, and by following a curved route, the low pressure tunnel could be driven through Foyers granite from Loch Mhòr to the surge shaft. However, the route was bisected by the Gleann Liath, a small lower lying valley, and because the quality of rock was so poor, the pipeline ran off the surface for a short distance. This provided two additional work faces from which tunnelling could be carried out. The low pressure tunnel was 9,400 feet (2,900 m) long. From the surge shaft, a 24-foot (7.3 m) tunnel was excavated, which fed two steel lined tunnels to supply the turbines. These were situated at the bottom of elliptical shafts which are 165 feet (50.2 m) deep, an arrangement that maintained the scenic integrity of the area and complied with the planning conditions that the outlet should be at least 115 feet (35 m) below the surface of Loch Ness.

The 300 MW power station with the transformers in front of it

Edmund Nuttall Ltd won the contract for the surge shaft, the high pressure tunnels, the power house and lower control works. The contract for the low pressure tunnel was awarded to Duncan Logan Construction, but they went bankrupt after six months on site, and Nuttall's took over this part of the project as well. The reversible turbines were supplied by Boving and Company, at a cost of nearly £2 million. The surge shaft was nearly 300 feet (91 m) tall and 61 feet (19 m) in diameter when completed. It was lined with concrete, which was achieved in a single pour by working 24 hours a day for 21 days, and using a hydraulically operated climbing shutter. Initial plans for routing the 275kV power lines away from the station were altered after there were objections to the route, and following a public enquiry, the switching station was located some 3,000 feet (910 m) further along Loch Ness, with the cables buried underground between the power station and the switching station.

The new power station is situated on the east bank of Loch Ness, to the north of the aluminium smelter, and was formally opened in April 1975. The scheme has a capacity of 305 megawatts and comprises two 150 MW generating sets located at the bottom of elliptical shafts, plus the 5MW generators at the Falls of Foyers station. The turbines are controlled remotely from a control centre in Perth, and when there is a sudden increase in demand for electricity, the plant can start generating 300 MW within 30 seconds, using 200 tonnes of water per second. At periods of low demand, the turbines are run in reverse, taking power from the grid to pump water from Loch Ness back into Loch Mhòr, ready for the next period of high demand. In order to allow back pumping, water for the power station no longer uses the course of the river, but is fed through 2 miles (3.2 km) of pipes and tunnels which run to the station from Loch Mhòr.

When completed, the final cost of the project was nearly twice the original estimate, at £20.2 million. However, 60 percent of the increase was due to inflation, and much of the rest was due to the extremely difficult geology of the area, which lies in the shatter zone of the Great Glen Fault. The scheme proved to be the last of the schemes carried out by the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board.

The low pressure tunnel from Loch Mhòr to the surge chamber is D-shaped and 23 feet (7 m) in diameter. From the surge chamber, the water fills a vertical concrete shaft which is 367 feet (112 m) deep and the same diameter as the low pressure tunnel. At the bottom, it turns through a right angle, and continues as a concrete tunnel with a steel lining. This then splits into two smaller tunnels, again steel lined, which taper down to 10 feet (3 m) at the inlet valves for the turbines. In 2002, some of the steel lining separated from the concrete in one of the tunnels, on the final section 160 feet (49 m) below the level of Loch Ness. Engineers from Kvaerner Markham of Sheffield, England cut away the damaged steelwork and fitted redesigned linings, which had to be welded in situ, before 400 anchor bolts were used to attach them to the concrete.

The generator sets at Foyers produce power at 18kV, which is stepped up to 275kV at the station, and is connected to the switching station by an underground oil-filled cable. There are two transformers, one of which was manufactured in 1982, and a second which was installed in 1991 after partial failure of the first one. By 2019, the original transformer was in need of replacement, and a decision was taken to rationalise the system, including the replacement of the oil-filled cable to the switching station, as it is the only one left in the Scottish transmission system. The proposed solution will involve building a new transformer station offline, just outside the existing power station compound.

The main building for the aluminium smelter was probably designed by Cameron Burnett and erected in 1895-96. It consists of eight crow-stepped gables, behind which is a long shed. It has a corrugated iron roof, and the end walls are pierced by pairs of round-headed windows. Each of the eight ridges has a louvered saddle-back vent running along its length. It is a Grade A listed structure, and has been listed because the powerhouse was the first use of large scale hydroelectric power for industrial purposes in Scotland.

The dam at Loch Mhòr was built at the same time. It was made of concrete, masonry and rammed earth, and consists of two sections. The north-west wall was subsequently reinforced with additional concrete, while the control tower is crenellated, reflecting the style of the smelter. The control gear for the sluice gates is original. The intake for the original turbines consists of a D-shaped structure on the River Foyers just above the Upper Falls. It is not quite in original condition, as metal screens and railings were added in the late 20th century.

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

28th of May 2022 by Paul Morris

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Loch Mhor, Inverness-shire, Highlands, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

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Loch Mhòr is a loch in the traditional county of Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Its name literally translates to "Big Loch". It occupies much of the wide floor of Stratherrick which runs roughly parallel to Loch Ness, around 3 mi (4.8 km) to its southeast. A generally shallow body of water 179 m (587 ft) above Loch Ness, Loch Mhòr achieves a depth in excess of 20 m (66 ft) towards its southern end.

Loch Mhòr was originally two separate lochs, Loch Garth in the southwest and Loch Farraline in the northeast. The water level was raised, so it could be used as a reservoir for a hydro-electric scheme and associated aluminium smelter at Foyers. The smelter closed in 1967, but the Loch is still used as a reservoir for a 300 MW pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility. This joined the two lochs into one, though they are still divided by a causeway carrying a minor road. In its middle reaches, a broad and shallow embayment on its southeastern shore contains a scatter of islets.

The main rivers into the Loch are the River E, and some of the flow of the River Fechlin, which has been diverted through an aqueduct.

The waters of the loch empty as the River Gourag below a dam at its southwestern end. This short river joins the River Foyers which empties into Loch Ness.