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Highland history of the middle ages continues to be regarded generally as separate from the history of the Lowlands, as well as the political history of Scotland. To a large extent, the perception of two distinct societies within Scotland during this period has been swept aside, but few moves have been made to integrate fully the history of clanship into that of Scotland as a whole. This case study of the Mackintoshes and Clan Chattan seeks to examine clanship from a sociological as well as a historical perspective. Kinship was a fundamental characteristic of clan society, but these relationships were not limited to blood relatives. The creation of Active kinship through ties of customary obligation within a clan reinforced clan solidarity and cohesion, a vital factor for the geographically disparate Clan Chattan confederation. Within the locality, Active kinship was established by the contraction of more formal alliances which had social, political and economic objectives. The creation of these relationships enabled the clan to survive and expand. For central Highland clans like the Mackintoshes and Clan Chattan who lived in close geographic proximity to Lowland society, the extension of fictive kinship facilitated easy assimilation across the perceived divide in Scottish society. The realisation on the part of clan chiefs that cordial relations with the crown would be beneficial to the clan as a whole saw a movement throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries towards closer integration with Lowland society. This examination of clanship places the history of the Highlands into a wider political and social context. While clanship was a unique phenomenon within Scotland, it should not be examined in isolation, but rather as an integral part of Scottish political life.

A study f the characters of the Tertiary dyke-swarms of Skye, Ardnmurchan and. the Small Isles of Invernessshire is based on observations at over 7500 dyke-outcrops, most of whiciL are located along well-exposed traverses. Because of geological limitations analyses of the properties of the dykes (trend, dip and thickness) can be semi-statistical only. Each of the dyke-swarms consists of a regional linear component of LW. to N.N.W. trending dykes, including parallel secondary-swarms in Skye and Ardnamurchan, together with in Skye and R.hum N.E. subswarnis of distinctive geo-. graphic distribution and comparatively- low intensities. The observations taken have facilitated: (a.) the construction of contour-maps depicting symmetrical distributions of multiple- dykes, of the arithmetic-average trends and thicknesses of the dykes, etc., (b.) both an approximate delimitation of regional-swarms and the distinction of these from subsidiary-avarms, in each case on the basis of the intensity- distribution and trend-distribution of the constituent dykes, and Cc.) the discovery of a latent plutonic -complex near Jluck, az a possible "centre" off the rwrth-west coast of Lewis. The trends, thicknesses, and to some extent the dips of small groups of dykes are intimately related to: (i.) the locations of those dykes with respect to the axes of highintensity of both crustal-stretch (dilation) and number of dykes per kilometre, (ii.) the positions of the dykes in relation to the site of the roughly contemporaneous Central Intrusive Coiiplexes, and (iii.) the structure of the country-- rock in which the dykes were emplaced, especially in the cases of the !oinian rocks, the Tertiary lavas, and the peripherally folded Mesozoic rocks bordering the Central Complex of Skye. The form and structure of the dyke-swarms, the distribution of the petrological types of dykes, and the available aeromagnetic, gravity-anomaly, and radiometric-dating evidence, indicate that the emplacement of each dyke-swarm is related to a sone of N.W. transcurrent faulting roughly paralleling the major dilation-axis of the swarm. Such faults were the consequence of differential movement of crustal blocks away from the line of a proposed Tertiary separation (Rockall Trough) of the British mainland and Rockall Plateau. Intracrustal, elongate, ridge-like basaltic magma-reservirs, whose ultimate source was the upper mantle, are believed to have ascended each of these faults. At the intersections of the N.W. transcurrent faults with preexisting N.E. faults cylinders of basaltic magma arose to form the Central Intrusive Complexes. Dyke-swarms developed as offshoots of the basaltic ridges and to a small extent from the basaltic cylinders, under the influence of a N.E. to S.W. tension resulting from a relative separation in this same direction of' the crustal blocks on both sides of the Rockall Trough rift.

As living beings, seaweeds exist at the periphery of people’s awareness, and not much is known about what they mean to people, and the relationships we can have with them. They are useful, versatile commodities, and multitask as foodstuffs for people and other beings, as sources of biofuel and medicinal compounds, and the list goes on... but, what else? This work seeks to shed light on the kinds of relations that people can have with seaweeds when relationships of use are purposefully bracketed out, in order to understand their social and symbolic worlds. To this end, during the months of November through January, the author discussed the perceptions of seaweeds with the neighbours of the area of Loch Hourn, a sea-loch (fjord) in the western seaboard of the Scottish Highlands, and some other nearby townships. The present study interlaces participant observation nuanced by the winter and the weather, and interviews, to explore how, through relations of biosociality, companionship, awareness and interanimation of the environment, alternative configurations of knowing, Gaelic tradition, symbolism, and hope, seaweeds embody different aspects of the meaning of‘sanctuary’.