The estuary of the Urr, known as Rough Firth, is navigable by ships of from 80 to 100 tons, and small vessels can ascend as far as the mouth of Dalbeattie Burn, within a mile of the town.
Scapa Flow was preferred to the Cromarty Firth as his chief naval base by Admiral Jellicoe, but no preparations had been made and everything had to be improvised, guns being landed from the ships to strengthen the defences.
It is situated on the Firth of Forth, 24 m.
To the north, west and south, a flat coastal belt, bordering the Irish Sea, with its inlets Morecambe Bay and Solway Firth, and broadest in the north, marks off the Lake District, while to the east the valleys of the Eden and the Lune divide it from the Pennine mountain system.
Reisner & Firth have shown that the early culture of Nubia was closely akin to that of the predynastic Egyptians, which no doubt came from the south.