ABSTRACT
In the western half of the Scottish Lowlands a great triangle can be drawn to join Arrochar at the head of Loch Long, Dolphinton on the eastern rim of Lanarkshire, and Ballantrae on the south Ayrshire coast. Within it lies the region of the west of Scotland, nestling between the rugged masses of the Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The area is commonly called ‘lowland’ but barely half is under 600 feet (Map 1). The landscape is cluttered with hummocks of sands, clays and gravels left behind from the Ice Age, and cut by deep valleys formed by the biting incision of small and active streams. Their vigour gave the power for the initial industrial expansion in textiles, but in cutting into the earth they uncovered a successor. Coal seams were exposed on numerous valley sides, and the Clyde and Ayrshire lowlands were found to be underlain by Scotland’s richest coal and iron fields. The west of Scotland built its industrial success on these resources.
