Conan (Gael. caoin-an, ` gentle river '), a river of SE Ross-shire, formed, at an altitude of 180 feet above sea-level, by the confluent Sheen and Meig, in Contin parish, 3¾ miles W by N of Contin church. Thence it runs 9½ miles east-by-southward and 2¾ north-north-eastward, till it falls into the head of Cromarty Firth, 1 mile S of Dingwall. On its left lie the parishes of Contin, Fodderty, and Dingwall, on its right of Urray and Urquhart - Logie - Wester; and its chief affluents are the Blackwater on the left, the Orrin on the right. The fishing, which is everywhere preserved, is better for salmon than trout; pearl-mussels have been occasionally found, containing magnificent pearls. The Highland railway crosses it, in the vicinity of Conan Bridge village, by a fine viaduct, which, 435½ feet long, has five very sharply-skewed arches, and commands a charming view of a reach of the river's valley and of the upper waters of Cromarty Firth. Hugh Miller, in My Schools and Schoolmasters, devotes many pages to the Conanside of 1821, with its broad lower alder-fringed reaches, its noble hills, its woods of Tor Achilty, Brahan Castle, and Conan House, its winter floods, and its waterwraith.Ord. Sur., sh. 83,1881.
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