Turning westwards, we find that in the inner Hebrides 1850 was the date at which the run-rig system finally died out, in a manner and under conditions which will demand further attention. But it survived in the Outer Hebrides to a considerably later date. A very full and interesting description by Mr. Alexander Carmichael is given in Skene’s “Celtic Scotland,” Vol. III. chapter x. “Old systems are tenacious. They linger long among a rural people and in remote places. Of these is the land system of run-rig (Mor Barann) which characterises more or less the land system of the Western Isles. The outer Hebrides are called the Long Island. They are a series of islands 119 miles in length, and varying from half-a-mile to twenty miles in breadth. This kite-like chain of forty inhabited and upwards of a hundred and fifty uninhabited islands contains a population of 40,000. Much of this land is held by extensive tacksmen on leases (Fir Baile), and there being no intermediate tenantry, the rest of the land is occupied by small tenants at will without leases. These number 4,500, the majority of whom fish as well as farm. “The country is divided into townlands of various extent. The arable land (Fearann Grainsich) occupied by the small tenants of these townlands is worked in three ways--as crofts wholly, as crofts and run-rig combined, and as run-rig wholly. In Lewis and Harris the arable land is wholly divided into crofts: in Uist and Barra the arable land is divided in part into crofts, and in part worked in run-rig; while in the townlands of Hosta, Coolas Paipil, and the island of Heisgeir in North Uist, the arable land is worked exclusively upon the run-rig system of share and share alike. The grazing land of the tenants of each townland throughout the Long Island is held in common (in Lewis called Comhpairt). “The soil varies from pure sand to pure moss. Along the Atlantic there is a wide plain of sandy soil called _Machair_. This merges into a mixture of sand and moss (Breacthalamh, or mottled soil), which again merges into pure moss (Mointeach) towards the Minch. As the soil is dry and sandy, if the summer is dry the crop is light. On the other hand, if the summer is moist the crop is heavy and good. In order that all may have an equal chance, the _Machair_ belonging to them is equally divided among the tenants of the township. Obviously the man who is restricted to his croft has fewer advantages than the man who, together with his croft, has his share of the _Machair_, and still fewer advantages than the man who has, rig for rig with his neighbours, the run of the various soils of his townland, which gives name to the system. Consequently a wet or dry season affects the tenant of the croft system more than the tenant of the combined system, and the tenant of the combined system more than the tenant of the run-rig system.