Almond, a river of Lanark, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh shires, rising in Shotts parish, 2 miles E of Kirk of Shotts, at an altitude of about 700 feet. It has an eastward course for 14 miles past Blackburn and Livingstone to near Midcalder and thence, in a north-easterly direction, follows the boundary between Linlithgow and Edinburgh shires, past Almondell, Kirkliston, Carlowrie, and Cragiehall, to the Firth of Forth at Cramond. Its total length, exclusive of smaller windings, is 24 miles: its bed, over great part of its course, is broad and either gravelly or rocky: its waters, after heavy rains, often come down in great freshets, overflowing the banks and doing much injury to low, fertile, adjacent lands, but of late years have been extensively restrained by strong and high embankments. Its chief tributaries are Breich Water on the right above Livingstone, the Broxburn on the left above, and the Gogar Burn on the right below, Kirkliston. Its lower reaches traverse a picturesque wooded ravine, and between Midcalder and Kirkliston the stream is crossed by an aqueduct of the Union Canal, and by a viaduct of the Edinburgh and Glasgow branch of the North British railway. The fishing, ruined by oil-works and the steeping of flax, is improving in consequence of legal proceedings, and trout are beginning to be once more found.—Ord. Sur.,shs. 31, 32, 1867-57.
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