BEN NEVIS, highest mountain in the British Isles, Inver ness-shire, Scotland. It is 4,4o6ft. above sea level, E.S.E. of Fort William, the meridian of 5° W. passing through it. From Banavie on the Caledonian canal, it shows two great masses, and though bulky is much less striking than many other Highland hills. Its summit is a plateau of 1 ooac. with a slight slope to the south and a sheer fall to the north-east of more than I,5ooft. Snow lies in some corries all the year round. The rocks of its lower half are mainly granite and gneiss, its upper half of por phyritic greenstone ; a variety of minerals occur. Its circum ference at the base is about 24m. It is flanked west and south by the glen and water of Nevis, on the east by the river and glen of Treig, and on the north by the river and glen of Spean. A bridle road up the mountain leaves Glen Nevis at Achintee ; it has a gradient nowhere exceeding I in 5. It was made for the use of workers at the Meteorological observatory mentioned below : some of the bridges have fallen. A small hotel on the summit has long been closed and is in ruins, and the observatory maintained there from 1881 to 1905 was afterwards closed for lack of funds. Its observations showed mean temperatures of 23.4° in January and 41.7° in July at the summit, while at Fort William the figures were 38.7° and 57.1° respectively; the mean annual precipitation at the summit was 17 o.8in. ; at Fort William, 8oin.