Extract

Corries are rounded, arm-chair like, or amphitheatre-shaped depressions, with steep smooth walls and flat floors, and are situated on hillsides or beside mountain valleys. The term has, however, been used in Scotland for any rounded niche beside a valley, as by Scott in “Waverley,” chapter xvi. “‘This,’ said Evan, ‘is the pass of Bally-Brough, which was kept in former times by ten of the Clan Donnochie against a hundred of the Low Country carles. The graves of the slain are still to be seen in that little corri, or bottom, on the opposite side of the burn—if your eyes are good, you may see the green specks among the heather.’” This pass must have been at a low level, a little within the Highland border, and from the reference to the Clan Donnochie Scott probably had in mind a pass on the Tay above Dunkeld.

The term is now generally restricted to hollows well raised on the sides of mountains. The term corrie is the Scottish equivalent for the names Kar in the Bavarian Alps, Botner in Scandinavia, Oule in the Pyrenees, Cirque in the French Alps, Cwm in Wales, Coum in north-western and Coombe in southern England. Some authorities discriminate between cirques and corries. Thus Professors Penck¹ and Herbertson² limit the term cirques to the depressions at the heads of valleys, and apply the term corries only to those on the sides. De Martonne,³ on the other hand, reverses this usage, for he applies the term cirques only to

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