Minerals *.-The rocks and ftones, which abound fo much in this parish, are all of hard granite, many of them interfperfed with veins of flint or fpar. They furnish excellent inaterials for walls and fences. There is likewise a quarry of a free or fofter fpecies of granite, on one part of the fhore, which is worked for mill-ftones, and from whence all the mills in the fouth-weft of Scotland are furnished. Maby of them are alfo carried into the interior parts of the country, and fome are fent to Ireland. From 20 to 15 are fold annually at about 3 1. each.

Fuel.-There are very many fmall fpots of peat moss in the parish, which are now much exhaufted. The preparation of this kind of fuel, upon which the fole dependence of the generality of the inhabitants has hitherto been, is here attended with vaft expence of time and labour, and after all they are but poorly fupplied. However humane the intention of the legislature was, in the late commutation of the coal duty, it has been in a great meafure fruftrated, as

tq

to agree very well. He was obferved to delight much in crop. ping the heather, and to prefer it to every other plant the cli. mate produced. He lived 18 months in the country, and experienced all our variety of feafon. He propagated with a ewe of this country; but both he and his offspring were killed by fome other animal, by which means the breed was unfortu nately loft.

* About 25 years ago, a copper mine was opened in this - parifh, near the rocky fhore. A confiderable quantity of ore was dug up, and fent in cafks to a fmelting furnace at fome distance. It was found to be rich, and actually produced as much copper as cleared all charges upon it; but the work was relinquifhed. The eftate, upon which it was found, was then the paternal eftate of the late Countefs of SUTHERLAND and Lady GLENORCHY, but is now the property of Mr OSWALD of Auchencruive.

to this part of the country, by the selfishness of the proprietors or tackimen of the coal mines along the Cumberland coaft, who immediately availed themselves of the opportunity it gave them to advance the price of coals at the pit, so far as to keep them still above the reach of the fmaller farmers, and inferior claffes.

Rare Natural Productions.-Befides the wild quadrupeds, common to all the fouth of Scotland, there have been found here fome few individuals of a fpecies of the weafel, more rare in this country. It refembles the pole-cat, or common foumart, from which it is diftinguifhed by the largeness of its fize, the fuperior quality of its fur, and by being free of that foetid fmell which renders the other fo difagreeable and difgufting. It is vulgarly called the martin, and is the mustela martis of natural historians.-There are found upon the fhore here fome of thofe wonderful marine productions, which feem to be the links that connect the animal and vegetable fyftems, viz. the POLYPUS, called alfo the Sea Anemone. It does not poffefs a loco-motive faculty, and its organs are too imperfect to entitle it to be ranked with animals; but appears to have fomewhat of more fenfation than can be afcribed to a merely vegetable fubftance, like fome of which, too, it is reproduced from any part cut off. Such of them as are found here are of a smaller fize, and their colours are not fo vivid, as thofe in warmer climates *.-Some

of

A neighbouring clergyman, however, (.he Rev. Mr MUIRHEAD of Urr), feems to be of a different opinion respecting this wonderful femi-animal. In a letter to a friend in town he gives the following defcription of it: "About 5 years ago I difcovered, in the parish of Colvend, the Animal Flower, in as "great perfection and variety as it is in Jamaica. The lively colours, and the various and elegant forms of the Polypus

of the springs that ooze through the rocks are of a petrify, ing quality, particularly in the higher and more rugged hills in Southwick, near Crow-fell, where fome chryftallizations are found.

Antiquities *.-At Fairgarth, near the center of the parish, there is a well formed of a very copious fpring of excellent water, arched over, which goes by the name of St. Lazurence's Well, hard by which are the veftiges of a chapel, with

burying

"on this coaft, are truly equal to any thing recited by natural "hiftorians, respecting the fea-flowers of any other country. "To fee a flower of purple, of green, blue, yellow, &c. ftriving "to catch a worm, is really amusing."

About the year 1780, there was found upon the estate of Southwick, belonging to Sir JAMES RIDDELL, Bart. in the middle of a large granite ftone, when blafted with gun powder, in a focket exactly fitted to it, a piece of the fame kind of fubftance, fmooth and polifhed, in form fomewhat refembling a rude hatchet. It was about 9 inches long, 6 broad at the one end, and 3 at the other end, about the thickness of the palm of the hand; one of the angles at the broad end a little more acute than the other, the corners a little rounded, and sharp round the edges. The virtuofi, to whofe infpection it was fubmitted, did not hesitate immediately to pronounce it to be a hatchet, which had been ufed by the Druids in performing facrifice, which conjecture they imagined warranted by the veftige of a Druidical temple very near the place where it was found: But this depends upon an hypothefis which admits rather of fome doubt. When the fize, the firmnefs, and folidity of the mass in which it was found, are confidered, and the difficulty of affigning any period fince the creation as the commencement of the formation of fuch a mass-indeed our entire ignorance of the nature and progress of such a process, or the time it would require, it must be owned it becomes rather problematical, whether this hatchet is the work of art, and ever existed in a ftate feparate from the ftone out of which it was taken; or if the phenomenon is only a lufus naturae.

burying ground around it, now occupied as a barn yard. At the fouth-weft corner of the parish, on a very high promontory, or head of land, formed by the junction of the Water of Urr with the Solway Frith, there are the veftiges of a work of ftrength, fuppofed to be Danish; the fofsè is fill very apparent. It bears the name of the Caffle-bill of Barclay. Upon the bank of the fame river, on the east fide, about two miles farther up, upon the narrow top of a small, but high, fteep, and rocky hill or mount, have lately been difcovered the veftiges of another work of ftrength, which, from the fcanty remains of its materials that are to be found, antiquarians fuppofe to have been a vitrified fort. The place is called the Moat of the Mark, or Merkland of Barcloy ţ.

Manners.-The Ifle of Man, which lies 24 leagues diftant to the S. W. the higher grounds of which are in sight here, is well known, before the lordship of it was purchased by government in 1765, to have been the great channel of a contraband trade with France, to the fecret operation of which, the nature of this country as above defcribed, but then in a still more unpolished state, was most favourable. Having the advantage of many fecret caverns, impervious thickets, devious paths, and unfrequented tracts, which ́afforded innumerable and fecure hiding places, it is not to be wondered at, if the inhabitants were generally and deeply engaged in it, and confequently addicted to idlenefs, and to that species of intemperance to which the staple of that

trade

Some people were alive lately, who remembered to have seen fome of the tomb-ftones and infcriptions, but none can now be found.

+ Vide ARCHEOLOGIA, Vol. X.

trade immediately miniftred. But the abolition of that trade has had a happy effect upon the improvement of the country, and the manners of the people in this corner; and the traces of thefe more licentious times, which were a proverbial reproach to this parifh, are now almoft wholly obliterated. The prefent generation are trained up in habits of fobriety and induftry, for which, and for their attention to their farms and refpective occupations, they are perhaps now no lefs remarkable, than they were in thofe more diffolute times, for their diffipation.

Difadvantages. The most striking which occur apply to the whole county of Galloway, as well as to this parish, namely, the difadvantages under which the farmers and breeders of black cattle, the great ftaple of this part of the country, labour in marketing them.-A number of young fellows, of the very loweft clafs, who dislike, or affect to be above labour, turn what are called jobbers, fcour the country, and infeft the cattle markets, and, by picking up the younger cattle, intercept a profit between the breeder and grazier, to the prejudice of one, or perhaps both of them. This is an evil which it is impracticable to reftrain, unlefs by fomething like the following method: That the farmers in general, for their mutual advantage, fhould enter into a concert, whereby it fhall be understood, to be laid down as a rule, that those who rear the cattle fhall fell them only to those, who, they know, can graze them upon their own farms or poffeffions; and that thofe again fhall buy only from thofe, whom they know to have reared then, or who have kept them at leaft for months.-Another evil, of which the confequences have been, and prefently are, feverely felt by many, is the frequent and weighty failures of the greater drovers, that is, those who yearly buy the aged cattle through the country,

collect