The claims of the p • lace to become an official
Park are
worth some investigation. Nowhere else in Great Britain is found a block of mountains of such combined breadth and height. Their vertebrae of granite and gneiss give them bold contours ; and though the coast of Scotland is astonishingly warm (the gardens can grow shrubs and plants that are killed by frost in the neighbourhood of London), the hills keep patches of snow throughout the summer. They can in this regard compare with the Canadian Banff, which is much the greatest National Park in the world in beauty of scenery, if excelled (in Africa and perhaps at Yellowstone) in the number of wild creatures who haunt it. If the Canadian Banff owes almost as much to its valleys (in one of which a great hotel is snugly tucked), are not these Scottish hills the source of the Dee and other streams as lovely as any in the world ? What a sanctuary it would all make !
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