is more eafily procured, than any other kind of fuel. In fummer, the farmers fometimes go 30 or 40 miles to the No. III. coal A weaver, his wife, and 3 small children, the eldest under 5 years of age, the youngest an infant. Earnings a-week. The earnings of the man and woman cannot be separated, as they are. both employed in manufacturing the fame piece of cloth. The man's wear of a fuit, 4s. 6d. ; of a working jacket and Of a pair of stockings, I s. 6 d.; of handkerchiefs, L. 0 10 6 0 17 9 o 18 caps, &c. 7s. The childrens wear, Fuel, Lying in, fickness and lofs of time thereby, and burials, one year with another, Rent of a house and garden, L. 1. The garden, dreffed by the man in the mornings and evenings, affords them cabbages, greens, and potatoes, to the amount of the rent. coal pits in Fife, where it is purchased at a comparatively low price. Villages.-There are five townships or villages, containing frem 20 to 38 families; and 6, containing from 7 to 17 families. Meiklour, the largest of them, has 3 fairs for cattle in the year. At Spittalfield a stamp-office was esta blished in 1775. Linen Manufacture.-The following quantities of linen have been annually ftamped here. The greatest part of this cloth is ftamped unbleached. It confifts of white and brown linen; the latter known by the the name of Scrimns and Silefias. Formerly, not above one third of what was ftamped was manufactured in the parish; but during the two laft years, the parish manufactured about one half of the quantity ftamped. Befides the above quantities, and without reckoning 12,000 yards and upwards, annually made for household ufe, there are about 20,000 yards manufactured in the parish, which are stamped at Blairgowrie or Dunkeld. Antiquities. About a mile and a half north-weft from the church, in a very elevated fituation, there is a small Druidical circle. Befide it are two large ftones, deeply funk in the ground; the top of the loweft is artificially formed into an inclined plane, facing the fouth, and contains a number of small cavities; which may have been used by the Druids in the performance of religious rites. Near the church, there are the remains of a cairn, where probably a crofs had been erected during the prevalence of Popish fuperftition; the place ftill retaining the name of Crofs cairn. Cairnmure is the largest cairn in this country, being 456 feet in circumference, and 18 feet high. It has been lately furrounded with a row of trees and a ftone wall. Above half a mile fouth-weft from this, itands another, 357 feet in circumference, and 14 feet high. In a line with thefe two, and at the fame diftance, there is a third, of a smaller fize. The top of the craig at Stenton, a mile weft from the church, bears evident marks of having been a fortified fpot. It is called Kemp's Hold, or the Soldier's Faftness. Some fragments of weapons were dug up about 16 years ago, when it was planted with trees. It has a very picturefque appearance. The antiquities of Inchtuthel have been defcribed by the ingenious Mr Pennant *. It is a flat Tour in Scotland 1772, Part II. p. 67-71 where there is any engraving of this tabulated eminence, fufficiently exact, except in the view of I given of 160 Scotch acres, regularly fteep on every fide, and in every part of equal height, that is, about 60 feet above the great plain of the Stormont, on which it ftands. Here the Picts had a town, which must have been a place of great ftrength, and of which the veftiges may be difcerned at the fouth-west corner of this fingular elevation. Boetius calls it Tuline or Tulina, and fays, that it was populous and well fortified; but deferted and burnt by the Picts, on the approach of the Romans under Agricola: he adds, (as tranflated by Holinfhed,)" the Scottishmen in our time call the place Inchtuthill *." The Romans also availed themselves of this fituation. Their camp flood on the north-east border, and commanded an extenfive view of the plain. It is 500 yards fquare; the walls, to a confiderable height, were ftrongly built, nine feet and a half thick, with stones brought from a quarry 2 miles diftant; the ftones have been gradually removed, and the walls are now almost levelled by the plough. In the courfe of ploughing, fragments of weapons, and fome entire utenfils, were formerly found. Here, Mr Pennant fixes the Errea of the Romans; with much greater probability than Dr Stukeley †, who fuppofes it to have been Perth; though in his map, he places it north-eaft of the Tay, and on the very spot where the prefent Delvin ftands. There are two tumuli or barrows, and a redoubt, on the fouth-eaft fide of the camp. A few years ago, the largest of these barrows was opened, ånd confifted of a rich black mold, poffibly composed of VOL. IX. 3 S the given of its fides, which are reprefented too steep. The eaft and weft fides are covered with thriving forest-trees, planted by the late Mr Mackenzie. Boet. Hift. Scotia, lib. iv. p. 64. Holinfhed's Historie of Scotlande, P. 52, 53 In his account of Richard of Cirencester, quoted by Pennant. the ashes of the funeral pyres that had been confumed there. It is now diftinguished by a clump of trees. Inchtuthel is likewife believed to have been part of the land granted by Kenneth III. (who began his reign in 977,) to Hay for his bravery in the battle of Luncarty; and his defcendents* poffeffed it till the beginning of the 17th century. There appears to have been a Roman ftation 3 miles to the east of this, in the moor of Meiklour, towards the extremity of the parish. The line of the Roman military road leading thither, can be still traced through the parishes of Scone, St Martin's, and Cargill: and this road feems unquestionably to be the continuation of that which paffed through Strathern, and croffed the Tay at Rome, a little to the westward of Scone, where probably there was a bridge of wood over the river †. Where the Roman road touches on the Isla, a bridge is alfo supposed to have stood, of which the neceffity is evident, for the purpose of opening a communication from the fouth with the station near Meiklour, and by consequence with the champaign country, both east and weft, as far as the Grampian Mountains. Here the Romans raised a wall of earth, about 24 feet thick, (for it is difficult to ascertain the exact measurement,) defended by a ditch on each fide, 6 feet distant from the wall This wall, which is now named the Cleaving Dike, ftretched above two miles and a half, from the ancient courfe of the Tay to the Isla; which, by their commodious junction two miles below, completely fecured the ftation. The fpace inclofed is in the form of a delta. In this area, there are feveral exploratory mounts; one, apparently artificial, (now called the Blackbill *William 5th Farl of Errol (who fucceeded in 1506) was in his father's lifetime, defigned William of Caputu, and Master of Errol Douglas's pecrage. † Appendix to Pennant's Tour, No. 15. p. 451. |