The Torran Rocks are a group of small islands and skerries located between the islands of

Mull Mull may refer to: Places *Isle of Mull, a Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides ** Sound of Mull, between the Isle of Mull and the rest of Scotland * Mount Mull, Antarctica *Mull Hill, Isle of Man * Mull, Arkansas, a place along Arkansas Highway ...

and

Colonsay Colonsay (; gd, Colbhasa; sco, Colonsay) is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, located north of Islay and south of Mull. The ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeil, it is in the council area of Argyll ...

in Scotland.

Geography and geology

The main rocks are Dearg Sgeir, MacPhail's Anvil, Na Torrain, Torran Sgoilte and Torr an t-Saothaid although there are numerous others including the southernmost of Sgeir Dhoirbh (or Otter Rock). They cover an area of about some south of the tidal island of

Erraid Erraid ( gd, Eilean Earraid) is a tidal island approximately square located in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. It lies west of Mull (to which it is linked by a beach at low tide) and southeast of Iona. The island receives about of rainWalker, A ...

and the

Ross of Mull The Ross of Mull (Scottish Gaelic: ''An Ros Mhuileach'') is the largest peninsula of the Isle of Mull, about long, and makes up the south-western part of the island. It is bounded to the north by Loch Scridain and to the south by the Firth of L ...

. The largest islets of Na Torrain reach or more above sea level and are up to long. West Reef is made up of half a dozen skerries of

orthogneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

about west of Na Torrain. The southern group of rocks and Ruadh Sgeir are formed from

potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) feldsp ...

-phyric

monzogranite Monzogranites are biotite granite rocks that are considered to be the final fractionation product of magma. Monzogranites are characteristically felsic (SiO2 > 73%, and FeO + MgO + TiO2 < 2.4), weakly

Caledonian Igneous Supersuite towards the end of the

Caledonian orogeny The Caledonian orogeny was a mountain-building era recorded in the northern parts of the British Isles, the Scandinavian Mountains, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe. The Caledonian orogeny encompasses events that occ ...

(late

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

to early

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

period) and form an outlying part of the

pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

. Dearg Sgeir and Torr an t-Saothaid are monzogranite to

granodiorite Granodiorite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar. The term banatite is sometimes used informally for various rocks ranging from gra ...

and hybridised with

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-silic ...

enclaves. Na Torrain and McPhail's Anvil are formed from equigranular

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more alumino ...

monzogranite.

Navigation hazard

Between 1867 and 1872 a lighthouse was built on the isolated reef of

Dubh Artach Dubh Artach (; ) is a remote skerry of basalt rock off the west coast of Scotland lying west of Colonsay and south-west of the Ross of Mull. A lighthouse designed by Thomas Stevenson with a tower height of was erected between 1867 and 1872 ...

, some southwest, in response to the hazards these rocks jointly presented to shipping. Between 1800 and 1854 thirty ships were wrecked on the Torrans with the loss of over fifty lives. An astonishing 24 vessels were lost in the area in a storm on 30–31 December 1865. The writer Hamish Haswell-Smith describes the rocks as "being scattered over a wide area like dragon's teeth. They lurk menacingly just beneath the surface, occasionally showing themselves in a froth of white spittle". Nicholson (1995) calls them " of jumbled granite teeth" and that "the extent and confused nature of this reef claimed untold numbers of vessels plying between America or the Baltic ports and

Oban Oban ( ; ' in Scottish Gaelic meaning ''The Little Bay'') is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William. During the tourist season, th ...

". The reefs are so hazardous that only small boats can hope to navigate them with any degree of safety.

In literature

In addition to being a hazard to navigation, they are one of the locations featured in the novel ''

Kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...

'' by

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

. It was in this "stoneyard" that Alan Breck Stewart and David Balfour were ship-wrecked. David Balfour, the hero of this tale was then marooned on neighbouring Erraid for a while. Stevenson's father,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

was the designer of Dubh Artach lighthouse, and the young Robert Louis knew the area well. He wrote of a "black brotherhood - the Torran reef that lies behind, between which and the shore the Iona Steamers" (taking visitors to

Iona Iona (; gd, Ì Chaluim Chille (IPA: �iːˈxaɫ̪ɯimˈçiʎə, sometimes simply ''Ì''; sco, Iona) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there ...

and

Staffa Staffa ( gd, Stafa, , from the Old Norse for stave or pillar island) is an island of the Inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt reminded them of their houses, which were built from ver ...

) "have to pick their way on their return to Oban. The tourist on this trip can see upwards of of ocean thickly sown with these fatal rocks, and the sea breaking white and heavy over some and others showing their dark heads threateningly above water". This passage begs comparison with ''Kidnapped'' itself:

Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in; and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain, when the brig rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the lee bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring. "What do ye call that?" asked the captain, gloomily. "The sea breaking on a reef," said Alan. "And now ye ken where it is; and what better would ye have?" "Ay," said Hoseason, "if it was the only one." And sure enough, just as he spoke there came a second fountain farther to the south. "There!" said Hoseason. "Ye see for yourself. If I had kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart, or if Shuan had been spared, it's not sixty guineas, no, nor six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in sic a stoneyard! But you, sir, that was to pilot us, have ye never a word?" "I'm thinking," said Alan, "these'll be what they call the Torran Rocks." "Are there many of them?" says the captain. "Truly, sir, I am nae pilot," said Alan; "but it sticks in my mind there are of them." Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other. "There's a way through them, I suppose?" said the captain. "Doubtless," said Alan, "but where? But it somehow runs in my mind once more that it is clearer under the land."

Etymology

Haswell-Smith (2004) states that the name is derived from the

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

for "loud murmering or thunder" although in a different context Mac an Tàilleir describes ''Torrain'' as meaning "hillocks".

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Bathhurst, Bella (2000) ''The Lighthouse Stevensons''. London. Flamingo. * * Murray, W.H. (1966) ''The Hebrides''. London. Heinemann. * Nicholson, Christopher. (1995) ''Rock Lighthouses of Britain: The End of an Era?'' Caithness. Whittles.? *Stevenson, Robert Louis (1887) ''Memories and Portraits''. Chatto and Windus. Reprinted by 1st World Publishing, 2004. * Stevenson, Robert Louis (1995) ''The New Lighthouse on the Dhu Heartach Rock, Argyllshire''. California. Silverado Museum. Based on an 1872 manuscript and edited by Swearingen, R.G. {{Islands of Scotland Islands of the Inner Hebrides Skerries of Scotland Uninhabited islands of Argyll and Bute Archipelagoes of Scotland