Folk music
Folk music includes traditional folk music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time, it has been contrasted with classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music; this process and period is reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has not been applied to the new music created during those revivals; this type of folk music includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, others. While contemporary folk music is a genre distinct from traditional folk music, in U.
S. English it shares the same name, it shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music; the terms folk music, folk song, folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore, coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions and superstitions of the uncultured classes"; the term further derives from the German expression volk, in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it is understood that folk music is music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive; some do not agree that the term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning given is that of "old songs, with no known composers", another is that of music, submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission....
The fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character". Such definitions depend upon " processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon "continuity and oral transmission...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy, the other side of, found not only in the lower layers of feudal and some oriental societies but in'primitive' societies and in parts of'popular cultures'". One used definition is "Folk music is what the people sing". For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of the town. Folk music was "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear" in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favour of a simple distinction of economic class yet for him true folk music was, in Charles Seeger's words, "associated with a lower class" in culturally and stratified societies.
In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types:'primitive' or'tribal'. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example, the Grammy Award used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music, not contemporary folk music. Folk music may include most indigenous music. From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: It was transmitted through an oral tradition. Before the 20th century, ordinary people were illiterate; this was not mediated by books or recorded or transmitted media. Singers may extend their repertoire using broadsheets or song books, but these secondary enhancements are of the same character as the primary songs experienced in the flesh; the music was related to national culture. It was culturally particular. In the context of an immigrant group, folk music acquires an extra dimension for social cohesion.
It is conspicuous in immigrant societies, where Greek Australians, Somali Americans, Punjabi Canadians, others strive to emphasize their differences from the mainstream. They learn songs and dances that originate in the countries their grandparents came from, they commemorate personal events. On certain days of the year, such as Easter, May Day, Christmas, particular songs celebrate the yearly cycle. Weddings and funerals may be noted with songs and special costumes. Religious festivals have a folk music component. Choral music at these events brings children and non-professional singers to participate in a public arena, giving an emotional bonding, unrelated to the aesthetic qualities of the music; the songs have been performed, by custom, over a long period of time several generations. As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: There is no copyright on the songs. Hundreds of folk songs from the 19th century have known authors but have continued in oral tradition to the point where they are considered traditional for purposes of music publishing.
This has become much less frequent since the 1940s. Today every folk song, recorded is credited with an arranger. Fusion of cultures: Because cultures interact and change over time
Porphyry (geology)
Porphyry is a textural term for an igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals such as feldspar or quartz dispersed in a fine-grained silicate rich aphanitic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts. In its non-geologic, traditional use, the term porphyry refers to the purple-red form of this stone, valued for its appearance; the term porphyry is from Ancient Greek and means "purple". Purple was the color of royalty, the "imperial porphyry" was a deep purple igneous rock with large crystals of plagioclase; some authors claimed. "Imperial" grade porphyry was thus prized for monuments and building projects in Imperial Rome and later. Porphyry has hardness 7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, corresponding to steel and quartz. Subsequently, the name was given to any igneous rocks with large crystals; the adjective porphyritic now refers to a certain texture of igneous rock regardless of its chemical and mineralogical composition. Its chief characteristic is a large difference in size between the tiny matrix crystals and the much larger phenocrysts.
Porphyries may be aphanites or phanerites, that is, the groundmass may have invisibly small crystals as in basalt, or crystals distinguishable with the eye, as in granite. Most types of igneous rocks display some degree of porphyritic texture. Porphyry deposits are formed. In the first stage, the magma is cooled deep in the crust, creating the large crystal grains with a diameter of 2 mm or more. In the second and final stage, the magma is cooled at shallow depth or as it erupts from a volcano, creating small grains that are invisible to the unaided eye; the term porphyry is used for a mineral deposit called a "copper porphyry". The different stages of cooling that create porphyritic textures in intrusive and hypabyssal porphyritic rocks lead to a separation of dissolved metals into distinct zones; this process, which occurs when fluids are driven off the cooling magma, is one of the main reasons for the existence in the world of rich, localized metal ore deposits such as those of gold, molybdenum, tin, zinc and tungsten.
This enrichment occurs in the porphyry itself, or in other related igneous rocks or surrounding country rocks carbonate rock. Collectively, these type of deposits are known as "porphyry copper deposits". Rhomb porphyry is a volcanic rock with gray-white large porphyritic rhomb- shaped phenocrysts embedded in a fine-grained red-brown matrix; the composition of rhomb porphyry places it in the trachyte–latite classification of the QAPF diagram. Rhomb porphyry lavas are only known from three rift areas: the East African Rift, Mount Erebus near the Ross Sea in Antarctica, the Oslo graben in Norway, it is intrusive. Pliny's Natural History affirmed that the "Imperial Porphyry" had been discovered at an isolated site in Egypt in AD 18, by a Roman legionary named Caius Cominius Leugas. Ancient Egyptians used other decorative porphyritic stones of a close composition and appearance, but remained unaware of the presence of the Roman grade although it was located in their own country; this particular Imperial grade of porphyry came from a single quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, from 600 million-year-old andesite of the Arabian-Nubian Shield.
The road from the quarry westward to Qena on the Nile, which Ptolemy put on his second-century map, was first described by Strabo, it is to this day known as the Via Porphyrites, the Porphyry Road, its track marked by the hydreumata, or watering wells that made it viable in this utterly dry landscape. Porphyry was extensively used in Byzantine imperial monuments, for example in Hagia Sophia and in the "Porphyra", the official delivery room for use of pregnant Empresses in the Great Palace of Constantinople. After the fourth century the quarry was lost to sight for many centuries; the scientific members of the French Expedition under Napoleon sought it in vain, it was only when the Eastern Desert was reopened for study under Muhammad Ali that the site was rediscovered by James Burton and John Gardiner Wilkinson in 1823. As early as 1850 BC on Crete in Minoan Knossos there were large column bases made of porphyry. All the porphyry columns in Rome, the red porphyry togas on busts of emperors, the porphyry panels in the revetment of the Pantheon, as well as the altars and vases and fountain basins reused in the Renaissance and dispersed as far as Kiev, all came from the one quarry at Mons Porpyritis, which seems to have been worked intermittently between 29 and 335 AD.
Porphyry was used for the blocks of the Column of Constantine in Istanbul. In countries where many cars have studded winter tires such as Sweden and Norway, it is common that highways are paved with asphalt made of porphyry aggregate to make the wearing course withstand the extreme wear from the spiked tires. List of rock textures – A list of rock textural and morphological terms Quartz-porphyry – A type of volcanic rock containing large porphyritic crystals of quartz Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina Tyrian purple – Natural dye extracted from Murex sea snails Pictures of the Mons Porphyrites, Red Sea, Egypt. Rhomb porphyry lavas at the Wayback Machine Flash showing rhomb porphyry formation at the Wayback Machine
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond is a freshwater Scottish loch which crosses the Highland Boundary Fault considered the boundary between the lowlands of Central Scotland and the Highlands. Traditionally forming part of the boundary between the counties of Stirlingshire and Dunbartonshire, Loch Lomond is split between the council areas of Stirling and Bute and West Dunbartonshire, its southern shores are about 23 kilometres northwest of the centre of Glasgow, Scotland's largest city. The Loch forms part of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, established in 2002. Loch Lomond is 36.4 kilometres long and between 1 and 8 kilometres wide, with a surface area of 71 km2. It is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. In the British Isles as a whole there are several larger loughs in the Republic of Ireland; the loch has a maximum depth of about 153 metres in the deeper northern portion, although the southern part of the loch exceeds 30 metres in depth. The total volume of Loch Lomond is 2.6 km3, making it the second largest lake in Great Britain, after Loch Ness, by water volume.
The loch contains many islands, including Inchmurrin, the largest fresh-water island in the British Isles. Loch Lomond is a popular leisure destination and is featured in the song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond"; the loch is surrounded by hills, including Ben Lomond on the eastern shore, 974 metres in height and the most southerly of the Scottish Munro peaks. A 2005 poll of Radio Times readers voted Loch Lomond as the sixth greatest natural wonder in Britain; the depression in which Loch Lomond lies was carved out by glaciers during the final stages of the last ice age, during a return to glacial conditions known as the Loch Lomond Readvance between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago. The loch lies on the Highland Boundary Fault, the difference between the Highland and Lowland geology is reflected in the shape and character of the loch: in the north the glaciers dug a deep channel in the Highland schist, removing up to 600 m of bedrock to create a narrow, fjord-like finger lake. Further south the glaciers were able to spread across the softer Lowland sandstone, leading to a wider body of water, more than 30 m deep.
In the period following the Loch Lomond Readvance the sea level rose, for several periods Loch Lomond was connected to the sea, with shorelines identified at 13, 12 and 9 metres above sea level. The change in rock type can be seen at several points around the loch, as it runs across the islands of Inchmurrin, Creinch and Inchcailloch and over the ridge of Conic Hill. To the south lie green fields and cultivated land; the loch contains thirty or more other islands, depending on the water level. Several of them are large by the standards of British bodies of freshwater. Inchmurrin, for example, is the largest island in a body of freshwater in the British Isles. Many of the islands are the remains of harder rocks. English travel writer, H. V. Morton wrote: What a large part of Loch Lomond's beauty is due to its islands, those beautiful green tangled islands, that lie like jewels upon its surface. Writing some 150 years earlier than Morton, Samuel Johnson had however been less impressed by Loch Lomond's islands, writing: But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.
Powan are one of the commonest fish species in loch, which has more species of fish than any other loch in Scotland, including lamprey, brook trout, loach, common roach and flounder. The river lamprey of Loch Lomond display an unusual behavioural trait not seen elsewhere in Britain: unlike other populations, in which young hatch in rivers before migrating to the sea, the river lamprey here remain in freshwater all their lives, hatching in the Endrick Water and migrating into the loch as adults; the surrounding hills are home to species such as black grouse, golden eagles, pine martens, red deer and mountain hares. Many species of wading birds and water vole inhabit the loch shore. During the winter months large numbers of geese migrate to Loch Lomond, including over 1 % of the entire global population of Greenland white-fronted geese, up to 3,000 greylag geese; the Scottish dock, sometimes called the Loch Lomond dock, is in Britain unique to the shores of Loch Lomond, being found on around Balmaha on the western shore of the loch.
It was first discovered growing there in 1936. One of the loch's islands, Inchconnachan, is home to a colony of wallabies; as well as forming part of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, Loch Lomond holds multiple other conservation designations. 428 ha of land in the southeast, including five of the islands, is designated as national nature reserve: the Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve. Seven islands and much of the shoreline form a Special Area of the Loch Lomond Woods; this designation overlaps with the national nature reserve, is protected due to the presence of Atlantic oak woodlands and a population of otters. Four islands and a section of the shoreline are designated as a Special Protection Area due to their importance for breeding capercaillie
Lomond Hills
The Lomond Hills known outwith the locality as the Paps of Fife lie in western central Fife and Perth and Kinross, Scotland. At 522m West Lomond is the highest point in the county of Fife; the name Lomond Hills was first recorded Lomondys in 1315, may derive from a Pictish cognate of Welsh llumon, meaning "beacon", an element found for example in the hill-name Pumlumon in Wales. Suggested is derivation from Gaelic lom monadh, "bare hill" adapted from an earlier Pictish name containing cognate elements; the Lomond Hills contain two prominent peaks, West Lomond and East Lomond, which lie at either end of an escarpment 6.5 km in length. The escarpment, made from beds of sandstone and quartz-dolerite, rises from the south to a plateau of around 350 m in height between the peaks of East and West Lomond. To the north and west, this plateau terminates in steep and, in places, cliffy scarp slopes. From its western end, the escarpment continues southwards beyond the deep valley of the Glen Burn to Bishop Hill.
The steep-sided peaks of East and West Lomond. Along the edges of the sandstone bed at the foot of the scarp slopes are several strangely eroded outcrops, the most famous of which are the Bunnet Stane and John Knox's Pulpit, so named because it is believed to be a spot where covenanters held conventicles in the 17th century. There are strange outcrops in the columnar jointing at the edge of the dolerite sill on Bishop Hill, most notably Carlin Maggie; the River Eden, one of the two primary rivers in Fife, has its source on the slopes of West Lomond. On the northern slopes of the Lomond hills, two burns run down from the plateau in impressive gorges; these are the Arraty Burn. Maspie Den has a path running along its length to an undercut waterfall at the top, which can be accessed just beyond Falkland House. Glen Vale with the Glen Burn, to the south of West Lomond, is impressive; the Lomond Hills have a rich and varied history. From the Iron Age are the remains of several hill forts, which can be found around the summits of both East and West Lomond as well as at Maiden Castle, a grassy knoll that lies between the two.
In more recent history, the Lomond Hills were mined for limestone and lead, although there are no longer any working quarries there today. On the southwest slopes of East Lomond are the well preserved remains of a quarry. Both East and West Lomond can be climbed from Craigmead Car Park, which lies between the two at a height of around 300m. Alternative routes exist from the Bunnet Stane, the village of Falkland and the car park at the masts, high on East Lomond; the views from both summits, due to their prominence, are magnificent, stretching from the Highlands to the Borders, with the sea in the east. Beneath the northern slopes of the escarpment lies Falkland Estate, an area of forest, where the kings of Scotland would have hunted whilst staying at nearby Falkland Palace; the present custodian of the palace is brother of the Marquess of Bute. Due to the steep gradients and poor soil, the primary land uses on the Lomond Hills are sheep grazing and commercial forestry and water catchment. There are six reservoirs in the Lomond Hills that were constructed to supply water to the growing mining towns of west Fife.
The Lomond Hills lie within the boundaries of Fife Regional Park, renamed the Lomond Hills Regional Park in 2003, have their own ranger service who work principally with the landowners, estate managers and farmers on issues such as public access to help minimise the impact of recreational activities on their day-to-day business. The park covers 65 square kilometres and is divided as follows: 1,120 hectares of land is in public ownership: 500 hectares belong to Fife Council and 620 are owned by Scottish Water; the balance of 5,355 hectares is owned. As a result of their accessibility and proximity to several major population centres, the hills are popular with walkers; this has resulted in a considerable amount of footpath erosion on the steeper sections, that the ranger service and volunteer workers are taking measures to counteract. As well as walking, there are a number of more unusual recreational activities that take place in the Lomonds. East Lomond, due to the easy access from the high car park, is used by paragliders on windy days.
The Falkland Hill Race is held annually and begins at the fountain in the centre of Falkland village. The competitors must run to the summit of East Lomond before returning to the fountain; the wooded northern slopes of East Lomond boast a series of downhill mountainbike tracks. Gliders from the Scottish Gliding Centre at Portmoak between Bishop Hill and Loch Leven may be seen riding the thermals above the hills. List of mountains in Scotland Maiden Paps Breast shaped hills Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine. Volume LXXIV, July–December 1853, Harvard College Library. Lomond Hills Regional Park community website Fife Council Institute of Geography Walk In Scotland Fife Regional Park Manifesto
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand smaller isles. They have a total area of about 315,159 km2 and a combined population of 72 million, include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the islands of Alderney, Jersey and Sark, their neighbouring smaller islands, are sometimes taken to be part of the British Isles though, as islands off the coast of France, they do not form part of the archipelago. The oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland and North Wales and are 2.7 billion years old. During the Silurian period, the north-western regions collided with the south-east, part of a separate continental landmass; the topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,345 metres, Lough Neagh, notably larger than other lakes in the island group, covers 390 square kilometres.
The climate is temperate marine, with warm summers. The North Atlantic drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C above the global average for the latitude; this led to a landscape, long dominated by temperate rainforest, although human activity has since cleared the vast majority of forest cover. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, by 12,000 BC, when Great Britain was still part of a peninsula of the European continent. Ireland, which became an island by 12,000 BC, was not inhabited until after 8000 BC. Great Britain became an island by 5600 BC. Hiberni and Britons tribes, all speaking Insular Celtic, inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brittonic-occupied Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD 43; the first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century, dominated the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by more permanent settlements and political change in England.
The Norman conquest of England in 1066 and the Angevin partial conquest of Ireland from 1169 led to the imposition of a new Norman ruling elite across much of Britain and parts of Ireland. By the Late Middle Ages, Great Britain was separated into the Kingdoms of England and Kingdom of Scotland, while control in Ireland fluxed between Gaelic kingdoms, Hiberno-Norman lords and the English-dominated Lordship of Ireland, soon restricted only to The Pale; the 1603 Union of the Crowns, Acts of Union 1707 and Acts of Union 1800 attempted to consolidate Britain and Ireland into a single political unit, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands remaining as Crown Dependencies. The expansion of the British Empire and migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the dispersal of some of the islands' population and culture throughout the world, a rapid depopulation of Ireland in the second half of the 19th century. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty, with six counties remaining in the UK as Northern Ireland.
The term "British Isles" is controversial in Ireland, where there are nationalist objections to its usage. The Government of Ireland does not recognise the term, its embassy in London discourages its use. Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description, Atlantic Archipelago has seen limited use in academia; the earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus has Prettanikē nēsos, "the British Island", Prettanoi, "the Britons". Strabo used Βρεττανική, Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, used αἱ Πρεττανικαί νῆσοι to refer to the islands. Historians today, though not in absolute agreement agree that these Greek and Latin names were drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabitants of the islands were called the Πρεττανοί; the shift from the "P" of Pretannia to the "B" of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar.
The Greco-Egyptian scientist Claudius Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. In his work, Geography, he gave these islands the names Alwion and Mona, suggesting these may have been names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest; the name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Great Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island called Great Britain. The earliest known use of the phrase Brytish Iles in the English language is dated 1577 in a work by John Dee. Today, this name is seen by some as carrying imperialist overtones although it is still used. Other names used to describe the islands include the Anglo-Celtic Isles, Atlantic archipelago, British-Irish Isles and Ireland, UK
Drainage divide
A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighbouring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, may be in the form of a single range of hills or mountains, known as a dividing range. On flat terrain where the ground is marshy, the divide may be harder to discern. A triple divide is a point a summit, where two drainage divides intersect. A valley floor divide is a low drainage divide that runs across a valley, sometimes created by deposition or stream capture. Major divides separating rivers that drain to different seas or oceans are called continental divides; the term height of land is a phrase used in Canada and the United States to refer to the divide between two drainage basins. Height of land is used in border descriptions, which are set according to the "doctrine of natural boundaries". In glaciated areas it refers to a low point on a divide where it is possible to portage a canoe from one river system to another.
Drainage divides can be divided into three types: Continental divide in which waters on each side flow to different oceans, such as the Congo-Nile Divide. Every continent except Antarctica has one or more continental divides. Major drainage divide in which waters on each side of the divide never meet but flow into the same ocean, such as the divide between the Yellow River basin and the Yangtze. Another, more subtle, example is the Schuylkill-Lehigh divide at Pisgah Mountain in Pennsylvania in which two minor creeks divide to flow and grow east and west joining the Lehigh River and Delaware River or the Susquehanna River and Potomac River, with each tributary complex having separate outlets into the Atlantic. Minor drainage divide in which waters part but rejoin at a river confluence, such as the Mississippi River and the Missouri River drainage divides. A valley-floor divide occurs on the bottom of a valley and arises as a result of subsequent depositions, such as scree, in a valley through which a river flowed continuously.
Examples include the Kartitsch Saddle in the Gail valley in East Tyrol, which forms the watershed between the Drau and the Gail, the divides in the Toblacher Feld between Innichen and Toblach in Italy, where the Drau empties into the Black Sea and the Rienz into the Adriatic. Settlements are built on valley-floor divides in the Alps. Examples are Eben im Kirchberg in Tirol and Waidring. Low divides with heights of less than two metres are found on the North German Plain within the Urstromtäler, for example, between Havel and Finow in the Eberswalde Urstromtal. In marsh deltas such as the Okavango, the largest drainage area on earth, or in large lakes areas, such as the Finnish Lakeland, it is difficult to find a meaningful definition of a watershed. Another case is bifurcation, where the watershed is in the river bed, a wetland or underground; the largest watershed of this type is the bifurcation of the Orinoco in the north of South America, whose main stream empties into the Caribbean, but which drains into the South Atlantic via the Casiquiare canal and Amazon River.
Since ridgelines are sometimes easy to see and agree about, drainage divides may form natural borders defining political boundaries, as with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 in British North America which coincided with the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains forming the Eastern Continental Divide that separated settled colonial lands in the east from Indian Territory to the west. Drainage divides hinder waterway navigation. In pre-industrial times, water divides were crossed at portages. Canals connected adjoining drainage basins. Important examples are the Chicago Portage, connecting the Great Lakes and Mississippi by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Canal des Deux Mers in France, connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; the name is enshrined at the Height of Land Portage which joins the Great Lakes to the rivers of western Canada. List of watershed topics River source – The starting point of a riverCategories: Category:Drainage basins
Grampian Mountains
The Grampian Mountains are one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, occupying a considerable portion of the Scottish Highlands in northern Scotland. The other major mountain ranges in Scotland are the Southern Uplands; the Grampian range extends southwest to northeast between the Highland Boundary Fault and the Great Glen, occupying half of the land area of Scotland and including the Cairngorms and the Lochaber hills. The range includes many of the highest mountains in the British Isles, including Ben Nevis and Ben Macdui. A number of rivers and streams rise in the Grampians, including the Tay, Cowie Water, Burn of Muchalls, Burn of Pheppie, Burn of Elsick, Cairnie Burn, Don and Esk; the area is sparsely populated. There is some ambiguity about the extent of the range, until the 19th century, they were considered to be more than one range, which all formed part of the wider Scottish Highlands; this view is still held by many today, they have no single name in the Scottish Gaelic language or the Doric dialect of Lowland Scots.
In both languages, a number of names are used. The name "Grampian" has been used in the titles of organisations covering the area, including the former local government area of Grampian Region and Grampian Television; the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded Mons Graupius as the site of the defeat of the native Caledonians by Gnaeus Julius Agricola circa 83 AD. The actual location of Mons Graupius, literally'Mount Graupius', is a matter of dispute among historians, though most favour a location within the Grampian massif at Raedykes, Megray Hill or Kempstone Hill; the spelling Graupius comes from the Codex Aesinas, a mediaeval copy of Tacitus's Germania believed to be from the mid-9th century. "Graupius" was incorrectly rendered "Grampius" only in the 1476 printed edition of Tacitus's biography of Agricola. The name Grampians is believed to have first been applied to the mountain range in 1520 by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, an adaptation of the incorrect Mons Grampius, thus the range owes its name to this day to a typesetter's mistake.
In the Middle Ages, this locale was known as the Mounths, a name still held by a number of geographical features. There is some ambiguity about the extent of the range. Fenton Wyness, writing about Deeside, puts the northern edge of the Grampians at the River Dee in the introduction to his 1968 book Royal Valley: The Story Of The Aberdeenshire Dee:... until comparatively recent times, Deeside was an isolated and little frequented region and the reason for this is the extensive mountain barrier of the Grampians which begins in a low range on the seacoast south of Aberdeen and rise through various intervening heights such as Cairn-mon-earn, Mount Battoch, Mount Keen, Beinn a' Ghlo, to Beinn Dearg This introduction appears to suggest that Wyness defines the Grampians as being the range of mountains running from south of Aberdeen westward to Beinn Dearg in the Forest of Atholl. Adam Watson, when defining the extent of the Cairngorms excluded the range south of the River Dee, writing: The other main hill group is the long chain running from Drumochter in the west to the sea just south of Aberdeen.
Many maps and books have given its name as ‘the Grampians’ but although children have to learn this at school, they do not learn it at home and nowhere is it used in local speech. Some map-makers have confused the issue by printing ‘Grampians’ over the Cairngorms and Strath Don hills as well! Both Wyness and Watson appear to exclude the Cairngorms from the Grampians, regarding them as a separate range. In effect, Wyness' and Watson's definition of the Grampians is as a synonym for the Mounth; however Robert Gordon, writing in the 1650s, used the term Grampians to refer to hills on either side of the River Dee, thus explicitly included the Cairngorms within the range. The mountains are composed of granite, marble and quartzite; the following ranges of hills and mountains fall within the recognised definition of the Grampians, i.e lying between the Highland and Great Glen fault lines: Cairngorms Monadh Liath Mounth Grey Corries Mamores Ben Alder Forest The mountains of Glen Coe and Glen Etive Black Mount Breadalbane Hills Trossachs Arrochar Alps Cowal The Isle of Arran Chisholm, Hugh, ed..
"Grampians, The". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). 
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