there was every reason to conclude there was lime on this estate, and the proprietor was at much pains, as well as expense, in trying to discover the rock. At length a mass of lime-stone was discovered, which gave universal joy to the proprietor and the country, as lime was much wanted here. Lime kilns, &c. were erected at much expense, and men set instantly to work to reduce the stones into lime; but the huge stone discovered was found to be only an outlier, or detached piece of lime-stone from some rock, which could not be found. The proprietor being disappointed and vexed, the kilns were suffered to go to decay, trials having been made for years in almost every corner of the estate in vain. However, after many years, a poor man one day, by asudden stroke, found his plough broken by something hid in the ground. The poor man, vexed that his plough was broken, went to see what had done it, as no large stones had been found there before, and observed a piece of stone newly broken from a rock below, which seemed to be lime, and which he carried immediately to the laird, or land proprietor, that he might see it. The proprietor, finding it to be excellent lime, by its effervescing with aquafortis, oil of vitriol, &c. and that there were thousands of thousands of tons in the rock to which it belonged, advising the poor man to forget the misfortune of his plough, gave him a handsome present, and a snug little farm rent-free during life; this discovery of the poor man's being equal to some thousand pounds to the proprietor.

The great outlier, or large stone found by itself, which was lime, though there was nothing of the

kind near it, serves to shew, among thousands of thousands of similar facts, that there must, in some former period, have been some vast concussion of nature here. When we see huge stones by themselves on the surface and on the tops of mountains, as these did not grow there, we may rest assured they have been cast up in consequence of some volcano, earthquake, or uncommon operation of nature. There is, in the parish of Ordiguhill, a large outlier of lime stone some tons weight, and no limerock to be found near it. As this huge lime stone could not, by any operation of nature, grow there, where there is nothing but rough whin or granite stones all around, it must have come there some way or other. It could not come there by the hands of man, as the art of man, assisted with the most powerful engines, could not have moved it; therefore, being detached from some lime rock below, it must have come there by some uncommon effort of nature. At St. Andrews, at Red Head, between Aberbrothic and Montrose, at Slanes, and the Bullers, as well as almost all the way from Peterhead to the mouth of the Spey, the sea-coast is bold, and the rocks in some places, particularly at Troup Head, near a hundred feet high. All this I have seen, and it is well known that such is the case in a thousand places all over the globe. Now, this being so, and the sea at the foot of those rocks for the most part, as in Norway, very deep: the stupendous rocks, with the immense chasms in them that excite our wonder, must have been produced by some sudden and violent effort of nature, to give vent to subterraneous fire and volcanic matter. And those huge rocks on the tops of mountains on which the eagles

build their nests, were, no doubt, once in the bowels of the earth, and have been tost up there by the hand of Omnipotence for the wisest purposes.

At GAMERY, a few miles east from Banff, I found that three Danes' heads had been built in the church wall. The Roman senate offered its weight in gold for the head of Caius Gracchus, tribune of the people, because he rebelled against them, which, with lead that had been run into it, below the brains, by the slave that cut it off, in order to make it heavier, weighed seventeen pounds: but I am of opinion the Danes heads found here would each have outweighed the Roman tribune's, without the lead.

FORGUE.

The sands of Forgue, which are wide and extensive, were about a hundred years ago a fertile plain; but a wind having arisen from the east, and continuing some time, blew so much sand on this place, that though it sometimes shifts, and is here and there collected into a kind of heaps, yet I believe it is in general from fifteen to twenty feet deep over some thousand acres. At any rate, I saw the church, which has no roof, but is surrounded and filled with sand to the very eves. There are several thousand acres of sand of the same kind in Murray, particularly in the parish of Dyke, where a number of sand hills now cover that tract of land which was formerly the estate of Mr. Duff, of Culbin. It had been the custom to pull up the bent, a rough spiry grass, with uncommonly long and fibrous roots, near the shore, for litter for horses, by which means, the sand being loosened,

gave way to the violence of the sea and wind, which carried it over several hundred acres of land.-It is in the parish of Forgue that the religious and worthy Mr. M-1 resides, whose daughter was married, in the manner above related, to the surgeon at Pickethley.

BAMFF

Has some foreign trade, and contains about three thousand inhabitants, who certainly do not lie under obligations to some of their magistrates. Two great men, that happened to live in the neighbourhood, like crows on an old horse, have picked the town to the very bones; and, for a mere trifle, bought up and inclosed with high walls almost every inch of ground. that belonged to it. Nay, either so foolish, or selfinterested, have the magistrates here been, that, not many years ago, they sold the salmon fishing of the river Deveron, which runs into the sea here, for less, I believe, than it brings in yearly.

The chief manufactures at Bamff are patent ribbed stockings, and white thread, which are shipped off. for London, and various other places.

The town of Bamff, the capital of the county, is pleasantly situated at the side of a hill, and the mouth of the river Deveron. The harbour is but indifferent; being but small, and sometimes shut up by the shifting of sands after storms.

The situation of Bamffshire, on the Murray Firth, and the fine river Deveron, certainly invites to the most industrious cultivation; but how many territories, more highly favoured by nature, lie either waste

or display only squalid huts, half starved cattle, and here and there a slip of corn land, on the banks of rivers and streams. It is to the animating breath of two noblemen, highly distinguished for genius, judgement, and the most patriotic and enlarged views, that Bamffshire is indebted, for the exhibition of a scene little to be expected in so northerly a latitude. The first of these was the late earl of Findlater, who made very extensive plantations between Cullen and Bamff, and first introduced proper agriculture. He encouraged his farmers to build good houses, to improve their farms, and establish manufactures. His farms were not much above a hundred acres of arable land, which were let for three nineteens, or forty-seven years certain, besides, as it was expressed, a life-time. But the tenant was to name the life he fixed on at the beginning of the third nineteen years. If the person, whose life was fixed on, died before the expiration of the nineteen years, the lease was at an end. But if not, the lease was continued till the death of that person.

The second nobleman mentioned, as a fostering genius of Bamffshire, is the present James, earl of Fife. An account of his lordship's improvements would fill a volume; and many a volume has been written on a far less interesting and instructive subject. But an idea of the spirit and success with which his lordship pursues at once the improvement of his own vast territories, and the good of his country, may be formed from the following particulars.

Immense tracts of ground, which were a barren waste, have been converted, by his lordship, into