There is a story perhaps as old as the Loch Ness Monster itself and that is the legend of an underground channel leading out of Loch Ness to a distant coastline exit to the sea, either to the west or the north east and which it is said the creature travels along to enter or exit the loch. This story goes right back to the first important book on the monster by Rupert Gould in 1934 where he states:
Credulous persons in the neighbourhood, and elsewhere, occasionally avow a belief, or at least a suspicion, that a subterranean tunnel exists, connecting Loch Ness with the sea - its distal end being usually located in Loch Hourn.
The subject was further taken up by Constance Whyte twenty three years later in her own magnus opus but neither did she give it much credence. The argument against it was stated by Gould himself from his same work, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others":
Unfortunately, the facts of the case forbid such a supposition. If a tunnel existed, the surface of the Loch would be at sea-level, and not a permanent 50 feet, or so, higher - furthermore, the waters of the Loch would rise and fall with the tides, and would be at least brackish, if not definitely salt.
That argument has been pretty much repeated by others throughout the decades and Gould's experience as a maritime man was taken to lend credence to the argument. However, one man was not convinced that this was the end of the matter and his name was Herman Cockrell. In an article for his local "Dumfries and Galloway Standard" newspaper in April 1958, he stated that:
So far the arguments adduced by experts against the possibility of an underground connection between Loch Ness and the sea, have been summed up by the late Commander R. T. Gould, R.N., in his book of careful recordings, "The Loch Ness Monster," 1934, and amplified in "More Than A Legend," by Constance Whyte, M.B., B.S., 1957.
I consider both these books to be of the highest merit; they are painstaking and impartial and it is only on this point about an underground connection that so far I have found them blindly following the majority. Apparently they were unable to find any convincing argument in favour, in spite of a special search, though this appears incredible.
I'm afraid the Commander must be mostly to blame as he was an expert on the movements of water and a noted navigator and his word therefore carried a lot of weight.
If Cockrell's name sounds familiar then it is because of his photograph (below) of the Loch Ness Monster taken later in 1958 when he mounted a one man kayak expedition and which I covered in a previous article here.
Herman took the view that there was an underground river flowing from some point deep below the surface of Loch Ness on its north shore which came out at Loch Hourn which is a bit further north than Loch Morar on the western coastline of Scotland. The shortest straight line distance between these two lochs is just a little longer than the length of Loch Ness at 27 miles and shown on the map below.
Cockrell had written a series of articles for The Scotsman newspaper on his planned expedition to the loch and one had covered this topic. I made contact with Herman's son some years back who kindly sent me material related to his father's research on the monster and the proposed underground river. This included an article produced on a typewriter in which Herman puts forwards some of his arguments for such a waterway which I reproduce here:
Since this date I have steadily collected evidence, and it is this that I wish to tell you all about. Firstly, Loch Ness drains over 700 square miles. The River Ness is the only exit to the sea, apart from a little flooding at high spring tides, Inverness never seems to be in danger from heavy spates and as there seems very little data on the subject, I can only assume there never has.
I have had great difficulty in tracing any data on the inflow and outflow apart from The Garry and The Moriston, which are controlled now by the Hydro scheme. The average flow from these two rivers is about 1000 million gallons per day, to this we must add four other rivers and about 40 burns, for which so far I have no data.
The average flow out at Ness Castle Farm, for the periods I929-62 I have only just received, it is 2611 cusecs, 1350 million gallons per day, which leaves only 350 million gallons per day for all the rest of the drainage. I am still getting data in, but I think these figures make it pretty obvious that as I have always said far more water is going in than is coming out, even allowing for a lot of evaporation. The excess water must be going somewhere and I think it is over the sill of my underground river.
Secondly, there is the mystery of the Garry salmon, are they east or west coast fish? I think West, and I hope to do some work on salmon and sea-trout scales to prove this. But to keep out of trouble as a professional fish farmer, I will state the case by quoting indisputable authorities on Scottish Salmon rivers. Grimble in "The Salmon Rivers Of Scotland" 1902 in a graceful and dignified disagreement with The Badminton Library over The Garry waters, Page 254, he writes:
"The usually accurate Badminton Library falls in to a curious error with respect to this river, for in the volume of 'Salmon & Trout fishing' the reader is told the bulk of the fish come into Loch Oich via Loch Lochy and so in to The Garry, at Page 184 The Badminton volume reads as follows:
'Who can account for the fact, that when you cannot find or certainly see or raise a fish on the Lochy in early spring, you can take scores on The Garry, of beautifully large salmon in prime condition? The shortest journey to The Garry is through the River Lochy and Loch Lochy, and yet fishermen will tell you that the fish in the Garry come from the East and not from the West coast (which is close by) and come all the way up the River Ness and Loch Ness, double the distance the Garry and yet whilst they are caught there in numbers not a fish can be seen or got on The Ness. In July and Autumn when sport is fast and furious on The Lochy and Ness, not a fish is to be seen in the Garry'
A more erroneous statement is difficult to imagine for before the making of The Caledonian Canal, two miles of solid land divided Loch Lochy from Loch Oich, and at no previous time was there ever any connecting link. When however this waterway was constructed a narrow canal was cut between the two lochs and it is only by passing through this artificial stretch of nearly stagnant water, in which there are at least two ordinary canal lochs with gates and sluices, that a fish could get from Loch Lochy to Loch Oich. Of course fish could be transported from one loch to the other and I do not say that it is absolutely impossible for a fish to take such a journey on its own account, but it is in the highest degree improbable that any fish has ever done this, and it is absolutely certain that no great quantity do so. ------- "
I was only born in I902, so was not old enough to point out to these gentlemen my theory of a fine sparkling underground river with deep pools and waterfalls to the west, which I think starts under the hill a quarter of a mile a little to the east of north beyond Cherry Island on the West side of Loch Ness and runs north west and then south west to Loch Hourn. The tidal part of this river, I think, comes up under Loch Hourn, after the second or third bar. Apart from the excess of fresh water there I mention, many salmon are seen milling around this area, an area like the rest of Loch Hourn, in which there is no reason for salmon to be at all in any quantity, because there are no spawning rivers of any consequence in these parts.
Pausing here and using a bathymetric map of Loch Ness, Cockrell's location and suggested depth places his proposed around the area of the white circle.
With regards fish, there is another interesting fact I have been told about but have not read yet. Salmon marked with capsules released in Loch Ness, unlike fish marked in this manner in other parts, are found to have their capsules collapsed, it has been found that capsules only collapse at about 400ft depth. I think it is most unlikely that salmon would go so deep in Loch Ness without a reason, could it not be that the tunnels connecting my underground loch or cleft to Loch Ness are very deep, forcing the fish to take this dive.
Another method I used for finding my river while up at Loch Ness and Loch Hourn last week, was dowsing. It struck me that while all waters round Loch Ness would be running in, my river could be the only water running out, this rather simplified matters.
I do elementary worn on dowsing myself, so know that it works but I cannot define direction of flow, however I was lucky in getting a dowsing friend, who can do this, Colonel Millar of Annan, to come with me. I drove him to the spot that I thought my river started, and to three places on the line and then to Loch Hourn itself. He got indications in all these places, unfortunately Loch Hourn must have been in a jocular mood and it put on one of its really wet days, the corries and mountains smoked with water, giving my dowser a bad cold.
We also had difficulties with [the] largest Highland bull I've ever seen, bent on protecting cows with calves, which were well able to look after themselves anyway. The Colonel had a bright red Mini about the length of one of the bull's horn, so just in case we drove backwards over the shoulder of the mountains and with a sign of relief turned and made for safer country.
Herman's main argument lies in the matter of how much water flows into Loch Ness and how much flows out. His example of two rivers with a total inflow of 1 billion gallons per day while the River Ness outflows 1.35 billion leaves only 350 million gallons for all the other major inflow rivers such as the Oich, Foyers, Enrick and Coiltie plus dozens of other smaller streams. The argument being that the total inflows of all these rivers must exceed the outflow of 1.35 billion gallons, so where does the extra outflow go?
The second argument concerns the migration patterns of salmon which he argues points to the fish coming from the west rather than the east, but there is no obvious path of origin for such a fish.
The third argument is more indirect concerning Loch Ness as it focusses on the theory that Loch Hourn contains too much freshwater and salmon for its location irrespective of whether that water may have come from Loch Ness or some other source.
The final argument concerns the practise of dowsing which is more controversial and so I will put that aside for now. Going back to the previously quoted newspaper article, Cockrell counters the generally accepted explanation of Gould:
This statement has apparently been taken for granted, in spite of the fact that the River Ness and the canals are doing this so-called impossibility all the time. We only have to say underground river instead of surface river and the argument collapses. Clearly the experts have been thinking only in terms of a connection between the bottom of the loch direct to the sea.
He then expands on the dynamics of his proposed underground channel and if you are not familiar with how such aquatic systems may or may not work, this may require reading over several times. It is certainly the most complex treatise of this subject I have come across.
The actual "nuts and bolts" of the river system could be worked in many ways. I give one simple example: An underground parallel cleft to the north-west of the loch, big or small, with a deep underwater connection or connections to Loch Ness. The water level of this underground cleft would be the same as Loch Ness, but its overflow would run underground through a series of pools or clefts, in an easy gradient to the sea, 50 feet below, the last cleft being tidal, like the lower reaches of any river.
I think, together with those who conceived the so-called old tales, that the outlet is in Loch Hourn (where our beast has been seen), because this loch is very much the same formation that I have suggested for the remainder of the water course. There are at least three basins divided by bars, from the head to the sea, though I would favour a last deep underground cleft, which would connect with Loch Hourn in fairly deep water.
Accompanying this article and shown below was a sketch of the proposed underground waterway. The vertical is exaggerated to bring out the channel detail with the surface level of Loch Ness and the proposed underground loch on the same dotted line and below this another dotted line aligning with the exit at Loch Hourn.
As the waters of Loch Ness outflow north towards the Moray Firth via the River Ness, so the waters of this hypothetical loch flow out west towards Loch Hourn. Even underground rivers need gravity to flow and so the height difference of about 17 metres allows for this. Herman expands on the inflow argument made earlier:
A further argument for the underground passage that strikes me as very important is the enormous amount of water that must be going into Loch Ness from such a large catchment area. It is difficult to believe that this can all run safely through the River Ness. and, since 1824, the canal system. The rise in a spate is very large, two feet in an hour or so on occasions, and a total rise of 8ft to 10ft. Surely there must be some safety overflow which makes the River Ness a pleasant place to live by.
Herman's argument then turns as to why Loch Hourn is his prime candidate for the outlet of water at the other end:
Another of the chief reasons for my thinking that the outflow is in Loch Hourn is this: I find that the pilot book for the West of Scotland, Vol. I on page 270, says in effect there is far more fresh water in Loch Hourn than any other sea loch in the west, but attributes it to heavy rainfall caused by the height of the mountains. I quote: "... Loch Hourn has about the heaviest rainfall of all lochs in the Highlands, from the great height and close proximity of its surrounding mountains. It is a gloomy place when the clouds hang low on their sides." On page 272, referring to tidal streams, it says: "The flood stream is retarded after rain."
In other words, the fairly strong tide is held up by the amount of fresh water coming out of Loch Hourn. All these things I intend to check during my investigation. I mentioned air-locks and here give one example of the many ways this could work.
Herman then examines how the general flow of water can sometimes be reversed in a dramatic fashion:
If the underground water was confined by low roofs, a high spring tide, raising the seaward end, and a heavy spate from the loch would set up a tremendous air pressure in one or two of the higher clefts, and water would be forced back into Loch Ness with great power. The air would then probably escape into the possibly higher roof of the first underground cleft next to Loch Ness, releasing the pressure, and water would rush back through the connecting channels.
With possibly fatal consequences:
This is where the diving party might get into trouble, though any ordinary current, flowing out through an underground system, would be sufficient to cause an accident to an amateur diver, and could account for the known disappearance of some people in the loch. These air-locks and their action could be mistaken for the monster himself; in fact, underwater disturbances have been suggested as a solution to things seen in the loch.
I have only spoken of rents and clefts as opposed to other forms such as the terraces reaching down to the coast in the west, which lend themselves so well to surface drainage in easy falls, as I am not prepared so far to argue with geologists. I feel I am on fairly safe ground, however, when dealing with a fault in the earth's crust, like the Great Glen, a split 65 miles in width, which could be 6000ft. deep, surely a disturbance like this could create anything.
OBSERVATIONS
Herman Cockrell makes an interesting argument for the existence of an underground channel between Loch Ness and the sea to the west and I shall now make my own comments which begin with the tradition that there was a subterranean link between Loch Ness and Loch Hourn. Certainly, the idea is a repetition of what Gould wrote concerning his conversations with the locals in late 1933. So far, I have found no texts which corroborate this belief, though that does not disprove the existence of an oral tradition.
When I was researching my book "The Water Horses of Loch Ness" which focused on the folkloric aspects of the mystery, I read through a lot of folklore books on Scotland but found no references to this tradition, though there was one tale from Loch Ness which told how a spoon or similar item dropped into a fathomless pool at the summit of one of the local mountains would eventually be found floating in Loch Ness!
But proving that such a river exists is another matter and by its very nature, such a channel is well hidden and may only be inferred by its effect on that which is observable. The most compelling argument is whether there is indeed a shortfall between water flowing into Loch Ness and that which flows out.
Using the National River Flow Archive going back to 1972, outflow data from the recording station at the River Ness comes out at a daily average flow rate of 90 cubic metres per second. However, the spates and droughts that affect the loch at irregular times means that the flow can rocket to almost 1000 m3/s or drop to as low as 5 m3/s.
In terms of rivers flowing into the loch, the data is quite sparse and does not seem to have improved since Herman Cockrell's days. The same NRFA dataset gives a mean flow rate for the River Moriston measured at Invermoriston of 20.7 m3/s. The only other rivers with daily flow data are the Tarff and Enrick with slower rates of and 3.2 and 3.5 m3/s.
But that leaves out the other main rivers such as the Oich, Foyers, Farigaig, Coiltie and dozens of other smaller streams. Herman's compatriot, Colonel Millar, calculated the total to be about 158 m3/s. Another estimate I found for total inflows published in 1969 was much lower at 71 m3/s, though this publication also provided no information on how this number was calculated. However, a 2023 hydrology study of Loch Ness makes the following statement:
Loch Ness is the largest freshwater lake or reservoir in Great Britain, both by area and volume. It drains a catchment area of about 1800km2. The large surface area (about 56km2) provides a substantial smoothing effect on flows - whilst a severe flood could see peak inflows in excess of 3000m3/s the peak outflow to the River Ness would not exceed 1000m3/s. In normal conditions the loch level varies within a range of about 1m, but in a severe flood event would go significantly higher.
Thus the answer as to whether inflows can exceed outflows is "yes" but it depends on the prevailing conditions. The volume of water entering and leaving the loch is in a constant flux as rain falls to soak the land or a heat wave arrives to dry it out. So, Herman Cockrell was right ... at least some of the time. How much of the time he was correct is not known, but the quote above brings in another factor.
When it is said that "the large surface area ... provides a substantial smoothing effect on flows" it means the water level of the loch rises to accommodate the increased inflows of water by up to a metre or more. For a rise of one metre over a surface area of 56km2 that equates to an inflow of 56 million cubic metres of water or an additional inflow rate of 650m3/s over 24 hours.
That suggests a situation such as where 3000m3/s flowing in over one day flows out at 1000m3/s over three days, a bit like a sink with two taps running but the open sinkhole won't drain as fast and so the sink fills up. Now Herman asked where the extra water went if the River Ness never runs above 1000m3/s while also acknowledging rising loch levels of "two feet in an hour or so on occasions, and a total rise of 8ft to 10ft".
So Herman wasn't buying that sink analogy and asked why the River Ness and its banks weren't simply inundated with this massive influx of water? In his analogy, we would add the sink's overflow hole siphoning off the excess water and that was his underground channel.
Now the existence of underground rivers is not disputed though they tend to be found within limestone cave systems or by drilling boreholes and other geological surveys. Cave systems are more likely to be discovered first and hence any rivers. The geological faults that surround the Great Glen may provide fissures for water to seep down into and form pools and areas of flow, but limestone formations are not as likely to provide the basis for such a channel as there are no known complex cave systems around Loch Ness.
A SUBTERRANEAN MONSTER
But as the old saying goes, you can lead a Nessie to water, but you can't make it drink. What would induce a monster to first find this subterranean hole and then go through it? On the face of it, a twenty seven mile journey through tight channels and perhaps lumbering along occasional stony shallows seems a waste of time and effort. Finding the entrance is likely the easiest part and traveling through darkness is no problem for a creature generally submerged in peaty darkness, but where is the motivation?
Cockrell likens it to the salmon he also thinks traverse this channel - it's all about reproductive instinct. They know where they came from and they come back there to breed. The seemingly wasteful effort of salmon leaping against the torrents before them to get to their breeding ground leads to their death but new life for their offspring. How this applies to a creature as vast as the Loch Ness Monster requires further thought and perhaps some imagination.
But the presence of a twenty seven mile underground river does not require the presence of a twenty seven foot monster. It's either there or it isn't and whether any creatures of any size forage in and out of it is a secondary consideration. But how does one go about proving such a geological feature exists?
SOLUTIONS
The only way to resolve the question is, like Nessie, to go and look for it. Cockrell proposed that its entrance could lie deep below the surface of Loch Ness near Cherry Island. That may have been a choice based on the most efficient route to Loch Hourn but in deference to his research it should be checked. But such an entrance could be somewhere else along the north side of the loch.
Could modern sonar technology provide an answer? Certainly this technology has matured since Herman Cockrell's days to the point where anomalous water currents deep down could be located. I say that based on the observation that differences between the underwater thermocline and its surroundings make it visible to sonar. Water turbulence near the mouth of an underground channel ought to show up if this causes a change in water density based on temperature or pressure differences while the presence of disturbed silt at the entrance may also help.
That leads to questions such as would these deep sonar anomalies not already have been seen? Would they be distinguishable from other underwater currents? Would they be visible if a sonar operator was not explicitly looking for them or the equipment was not configured for such a targeted search? Those are questions for equipment owners prepared to focus on such a task. But where else would one look along the twenty six mile stretch of north Loch Ness?
I can think of one suggestion and it hearkens back to an incident from August 1969. Dan Taylor had come over to Loch Ness from America with his mini submarine ready to seek out the Monster (pictured below). For his first dive, the vessel was towed out into Urquhart Bay where the depth was about 300 feet. This maiden voyage proved to be a potential disaster as the Viperfish dived into the loch only to hit the bottom and lodge its nose in the silt. Reversing the propellor did not help and Dan was forced to blow the ballast and the submarine burst to the surface on a rapid ascent.
However, lessons were learnt and the Viperfish conducted dozens of other searches without incident apart from one where Taylor reported that near the bottom, some force made the vessel move and yaw in the midst of a cloud of silt. Naturally, people speculated that he had encountered the monster but it was not a collision but rather a movement initiated by water displacement. If we speculate that he moved near the entrance to an underwater channel then the force of the inflow could pull the submarine towards it and initiate a spin.
Apparently, the submarine operated by Vickers at the same time also encountered some force which put them in a spin and it would be good to know at what location and depth these incidents occurred for further investigation. With all this in mind, Urquhart Bay may be an area for an underground channel entrance, though the use of an ROV rather than a submarine is much more likely!
CONCLUSION
I don't know if the discovery of such a feature would constitute an important discovery for Scottish geology. Curiously, it may constitute an important discovery for some Loch Ness Monster researchers as the two have been linked for decades. Of course, the presence of such a feature is not proof of what wildlife may or may not lurk in the loch but I could see it giving rise to a new legend. Namely, the equivalent of the fabled Elephant's Graveyard where a hoard of Nessie bones await the first intrepid explorer - just as Herman Cockrell predicted!
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