In a district where, despite the general existence of good roads, the shortest cut to church, post office, smithy, or mill is often by crossing a sound or skirting the shore in a yawl, the coastline spells something more than a mere alternation of cliffs and sandy beaches, diversified by the occasional appearance of a lighthouse or a harbour. Such things of course the shores of Orkney exhibit in no common measure, but to show how far they are from exhausting the coastal features of Orcadian life and scenery, it is only necessary to say that of twenty-one civil parishes in the county all but one (Harray) possess miles of sea-board, and that of the centres of population, only some two or three hamlets are inland. No spot in the Mainland is above five miles from the coast, no point in any other island more than three miles.

The general configuration of the coasts may be best studied on the map, but as not every inlet of the sea forms a good natural anchorage, we here indicate some that do so. Others, and some of these the most important, are mentioned in the final section. Widewall Bay on the W. side of South Ronaldshay, Panhope in Flotta, and Echnaloch on the N.W. of Burray are, after the far-famed Longhope in Walls, the best anchorages in the South Isles. The Bay of Ireland, known to mariners as Cairston Roads, is on the south coast of Mainland, a little to the eastward of Stromness. Inganess Bay and Deer Sound are in the N.E. of Mainland; Veantrow Bay on the N. side of Shapinsay; St Catherine’s Bay, Mill Bay, and Holland Bay in Stronsay; and Otterswick in Sanday. There are deepwater piers—as indispensable adjuncts of traffic in Orkney as railway stations are elsewhere—at Longhope, St Margaret’s Hope, and Burray in the South Isles; at Stromness, Swanbister Bay, Scapa Bay, and Holm on the S. coast of Mainland; at Kirkwall and Finstown on the N. coast of Mainland; and in Shapinsay, Stronsay, Eday, Rousay, Sanday Westray, Egilsay, and North Ronaldshay in the North Isles.

Lying as they do athwart a main trade route from the ports of northern and western Europe to America and the western ports of Britain, the rock-girded and wind-swept shores of Orkney are especially well lighted. Indeed it is probable that from the summit of the Ward Hill of Hoy on a clear night more lighthouses can be discerned than from any other point in Britain. Stromness is an important centre of operations for the Scottish Lighthouse Board, lying half-way between the east and west coasts of Scotland, and having the many lighthouses of Shetland to the north.

The coasts and sounds of Orkney are studded with innumerable skerries and sunken reefs. Few of these call for any special notice, but the reader should know that in a few cases—Auskerry, the larger Pentland Skerry, Sule Skerry—the name skerry is locally applied to soil-covered islets of considerable area. There are no raised beaches in Orkney, all oceanological and geological data going to show that the islands were once united, and the coastline in consequence at a lower level than it occupies to-day. Traces of submerged forests are to be found at Widewall Bay, in South Ronaldshay, and a few other localities. Coast erosion in the Islands is too slight a factor to have any practical significance.

Apart from the fine natural harbours, the outstanding physical feature of the Orkney coasts is the gigantic cliff scenery of the Atlantic sea-board, particularly that of Hoy and Walls, which both for loftiness and splendour of colouring stands unrivalled in Britain.

For a distance of about two miles from the Kaim of Hoy southwards to the Sow the average height of the cliffs is above 1000 feet, the huge rampant culminating about midway between these two points in St John’s Head, also called Braeborough, which attains a height of 1140 feet. About a mile southward of the Sow stands the famous Old Man of Hoy (450 feet), tallest of British “stacks”—

Of many other fine cliffs in this island we have space to mention only the Berry, in Walls, a sheer precipice of 600 feet in height, which forms, so to speak, one of the jaws of the Pentland Firth, the other jaw being Dunnet Head on the Caithness side. For beauty of colouring and indeed of outline, the Berry excels any cliff in this wonderful coastline, which the late Dr Guthrie described as, after Niagara and the Alps, the most sublime sight in the world. There is much fine rock scenery elsewhere in the Islands, particularly in the West Mainland, Rousay, Eday, and South Ronaldshay.

The tideways in many of the sounds which separate the various islands are remarkable for their turbulence and velocity, a speed of 8 knots an hour being reached in Hoy Sound, and 12 knots in the Pentland Firth. In the Pentland Firth also are two whirlpools, the Wells of Swona and the Swelkie of Stroma, the latter as famous in fable as the by no means more formidable MaelstrÖm. The total coastline of the Islands extends to between 500 and 600 miles.