_Other Industries._--Whisky is the chief product, and the numerous distilleries are usually busy. There are woollen mills at Elgin and elsewhere and chemical works at Forres and Burghead. Owing to the absence of coal what little mineral wealth there is (iron and lead) cannot be remuneratively worked. The sandstone quarries, yielding a building-stone of superior quality, are practically inexhaustible. The plantations mainly consist of larch and fir and, to a smaller extent, of oak. Much timber was once floated down the Spey and other rivers, but, since the increased facilities of carriage afforded by the railways, trees have been felled on a wider scale. Boat-building is carried on at Burghead, Lossiemouth and Kingston--so-called from the fact that a firm from Kingston-on-Hull laid down a yard there in 1784--while at Garmouth the fishing fleet lies up during the winter and is also repaired there. The Firth fisheries are of considerable value. The boats go out from Findhorn, Burghead, Hopeman and Lossiemouth, which are all furnished with safe harbours. Findhorn has been twice visited by calamities. The first village was overwhelmed by the drifting sands of Culbin, and the second was buried beneath the waves in 1701. Kingston harbour is tidal, exposed, and liable to interruption from a shifting bar. The deep sea fisheries comprise haddock, cod, ling and herring, and the Spey, Findhorn and Lossie yield large quantities of salmon. The Great North of Scotland railway enters the shire in the S.E. from Craigellachie, whence a branch runs up the Spey to Boat of Garten in Inverness-shire, and in the N.E. from Port Gordon, running in both cases to Elgin, from which a branch line extends to Lossiemouth. The Highland railway traverses the western limits of the shire running almost due north to Forres, whence it turns westward to Nairn and eastward to Elgin. From the county town it runs to Aberdeen via Orbliston and Keith, with a branch to Fochabers from Orbliston.