Elginshire

Elginshire, or MORAY, a Scottish county extending 30 miles along the low shore of the Moray Firth. It is 34 miles long, and 488 sq. m. in area, a former detached portion having in 1870 been annexed to Inverness-shire, whilst a corresponding portion was transferred from that county to Elgin-shire. The surface has a general southward ascent, and attains a maximum altitude of 2328 feet. Rivers are the Spey, Lossie, and Findhorn; and of several small lakes much the largest is Lochindorb (2 miles by 5 furlongs). West of the Findhorn's mouth are the sand-dunes of Culbin, due to drifting chiefly in 1694, and some of them rising 118 feet (see DRIFT). The predominant rocks are crystalline in the south; next Old Red Sandstone, with fish remains; and then reptiliferous sandstone of (probably) Triassic age (see DICYNODON). Agriculture is highly advanced over all the flat fertile lower tract; still, only thirty-one per cent. of the entire area is in cultivation. Burghead and Lossiemouth are fishing-villages; and whisky is distilled in the higher districts. Elgin and Nairn shires return one member to parliament. Pop. (1801) 27,760; (1841) 35,012; (1891) 43,453. The ancient province of Moray included the counties of Elgin and Nairn, with parts of Banff and Inverness shires. Scandinavians early gained a footing; and it did not become an integral part of the Scottish kingdom till the later half of the 12th century. Antiquities, other than the pseudo-Roman remains of Burghead (Ptolemy's Alata Castra), are Kinloss Abbey (1150), Pluscarden Priory (1230), a Romanesque church at Birnie, and the castles of Duffus, Lochindorb, and Spynie, the last with memories of Bothwell. See Shaw's History of Moray (1775; 3d. ed. 1882).