SHETLAND ISLANDS, Scotland, form the most remote group of islands incorporated with Great Britain. They are about 150 miles W. from Bochanneas in Aberdeenshire, and are separated from the Orkneys, from which they lie N.W., by a channel about 50 miles broad. Excluding the two more detached islands, called Foul's and Fair-Isle, the Shetlands lie between 59° 52' and 60° 5' N. lat., 0° 15' E. long., and 1° 50' W. long. Fouls is about 20 miles W. from the Mainland of Shetland, and Fair-lele about 25 miles S. from the nearest headland of the Mainland. The population of the islands in 1851 was 31,078. Shetland unites; with the Orkneys in the return of one member to the Imperial Parliament.
Surface, Coast-Line, etc.—The Shetland group consists of more than 100 islands, islets, holme, and skerries, 32 of which are inhabited ; the others are either small isles, on which cattle are pastured, or sterile masses of rock. The largest of the Shetland lake, called the Mainland, is about 60 miles long, from its northern extremity, Feideland, to its southern termination, Sumburgh Head. Its breadth varies from 3 miles to 10 miles : at one part, from Sandness to Neatingbay, the breadth is 24 miles; but the coasts are singularly irregular, and indented with innumerable deep bays, distinguished by the provincial term 'Voce, which so penetrate the interior, that no part of the island is more than three miles from the sea The next largest island is Yell, 20 miles long and 6 miles broad. Unet, the third largest island, is about 11 miles long and 6 mike broad. The other islands are comparatively small : the largest are Fetlar, Wbabsey, Bressay, Papa-Stour, 3teikle-Roe, Burrs, Fouls, and Fair-Isle.
The general appearance of the Shetland Isles, as seen from the sea, is an unvarying line of abrupt coast. The elevation of the highest parts is not remarkable : Roane's' Hill, in the Mainland, with an altitude of 1500 feet, is the highest hill in Shetland. Foula is distin guished from the other islands by a cluster of five lofty hills, termi nating in pointed cones, the highest having an altitude of 1400 feet.
The surface of the islands is rugged and wild, often desolate and sterile. The few tracts of cultivated and fertile land are generally
near the coast. The towering headlands that frown over the dark and stormy seas and 'rousts (as the turbulent serge. raised by the conflicting current. and torrents that sweep round the headlands are called); the singular pyramids of rock that rise to a great elevation along several parte of the coast ; and the openings of numerous lofty and dark caverns in the precipices of the coast—some of great beauty and others of gloomy graudeur—are highly picturesque features. The tides are remarkable for their unequal flow at different parts of the islands, and in opposite directions at the Rime time. The tide flows an hour earlier along the western than on the eastern sides of the islands, and does not recede below high-water mark more than two thirst parts of the depth of the ebb tide at the Orkney Islands.
Geology and Mineralogy.—The southern part of the Mainland is composed of a ridge of clay-slate, lying parallel to secondary sandstone and conglomerate on the one side, and small islands of gneiss and sienite on the other. The centre of the Mainland is a solid mass of gneiss, having bluish gray quartz} on the west side, and districts of sienitio greenstone and granite to the north. The island is formed of gntisa. Unit is chiefly formed of serpentine and diallage rock, bordering on a district of gneiss and another of micaceous Fetlar is similar to Unit; and the more remote island of Foula is formed of high hills of sandstone, with clay- and mica-slate, gneiss and granite on 134 north-eastern shore.. Fair-Isle also chiefly consieta of sandetone. There are copper-veins at Sandlodge and in Fair-Isle; iron-mica at Tittield-Ilcad, and iron pyrites at Garthness.
aintate, Agriculture, etc.—The Shetlands are subject to severe and long continued storms. Winter commences in October. The return of spring is Imperceptible till the end of ApriL The climate is variable and herald, but to the natives it is decidedly healthy, and instances of great longevity arc not uncommon.