ture. Agricul- eeeding along the Carse of Stirling, was always deep and of difficult passage: but in 1794 a turnpike act was ob tained, and it has now been finished in the best manner. Some experiments were made, before making this road, of which an account has been given by John Francis Erskine, Esq. representative of the family of Marr, in his "View of the Agriculture of the County of Clackman nan," which are worthy of notice. "In order to assist the commissioners in judging of the contracts given in to them for making the several parts of the roads, by ascertaining the weight of stones (or metals, as they are generally termed by the Scottish road-makers), and the number of cart-loads it takes to finish a lineal yard of a given breadth, some yards of a road were made at a villa near Edinburgh. As the account may prove useful to others, I venture to give it as warranted by practice. The cart used was a common Midlothian cart, or such as coals are generally carried in about Edinburgh. The length was four feet five inches, the breadth three feet, and the depth of it was nine inches; so that it contained about ten cubical feet, and weighed (the axle was iron) six hundred weight and a half. The road was metalled the breadth of sixteen feet; and the depth of metal, that is, of broken stone, was one foot in the centre, tapering gently down to nine inches on the sides. Nine cart-loads weighed five tons forty-nine pounds (which is very near twelve hundred weight eighteen pounds per cart). This quantity just finished three lineal yards of road, of the breadth and depth before-mentioned. The stones were taken from the heap of whinstones at Leith Walk, where they are daily broken for repairing that road; and they were as small as to pass through an oval ring of one inch and a half in its smallest diameter. The nine cart-loads cost nine shillings, which is nearly one shilling and pinepence-halfpenny ture. per ton; so that the materials ready broken cost three Agricul shillings per lineal yard, which is equal to L.264 per mile. The expence of carriage varies according to the distance of the pits or quarries from the roads, and the price of the hire of a cart per day. According to a pa per in the second volume of the Museum Rusticum, a loaded cart moves at the rate of two miles and a half per hour. The empty cart should return in a shorter space of time. If eight hours are reckoned the time of a day's work, a cart can travel twenty miles, which is equal to 35,200 yards per day; but if allowance is made for filling and emptying the carts, no more than eighteen miles, which is equal to 31,680 yards, can be reckoned on for the day's work, The following Table, showing the number of times that a cart can go and return from the pits of gravel, or quarries of stone, according to the several distances, is found from experience to be tolerably exact. It likewise shows the number of lineal yards of road covered in a day. Minerals. mines. This district is extremely rich in minerals. South from the great ridge of the Ochils, the whole country seems to be a great field of coal, with its concomitant minerals, ironstone and lime. The mountains themselves also contain some of the most precious minerals. The rocks in the Ochils are composed of red and grey granite whinstone, and different kinds of schist; but among them veins have been found of copper and lead. In the western part of the district, on the estate of Airthrey, in the years 1761, 62, 63, and 64, an attempt was made to work Rich silver a silver mine. About fifty barrels of ore were obtained; four barrels were valued in London at L. 60 Sterling; but the work was abandoned as unprofitable. It is said, that at an early period of the late century, Sir John Erskine of Alva, by the aid of miners from Leadhills, discovered a valuable stratum of silver in the glen that divides the Middlehill from the Woodhill of Alva. It was first discovered in small strings of silver ore, which being followed, conducted the workmen to a great mass of that metal. It had, in a great degree, the appearance of metallic, malleable, or, what is called, virgin silver; the produce was no less than twelve ounces of silver from fourteen ounces of ore. The expence of the discovery did not cost above L.50. During thirteen or fourteen weeks the produce amounted to about L.4000 weekly, and the proprietor is supposed to have obtained a sum equal to L.40,000 or L.50,000, besides considerable quantities of ore secreted by the workmen. When the great mass was exhausted, the appearance of silver gradually diminished, and the farther research was laid aside. About the year 1759, Charles Erskine, Lord Justice Clerk, having purchased the estate, a company was formed, which renewed the search around the old workings; and, though some small strings of metal were discovered, they were not of sufficient importance to encourage the continuance or the investigation of the work upon that level. A pit was therefore sunk below Minerals. the spot from whence the mass of rich ore was formerly obtained; and to facilitate the operation, the side of the hill was penetrated by a mine or level to carry off the wa ter. In executing this part of the work, a large mass of Cobalt ore was discovered, which at first was supposed to be sile mine ver, but upon accurate examination it proved to be the semi-metal called cobalt, which is used in forming the blue glazings of China ware, and in giving to glass a blue colour. The cobalt of Alva was tried at Prestonpans, and found to be in no respect inferior in quality to that with which Europe is in general supplied from the mines of Saxony. It was now found that a considerable quantity of cobalt-ore had been brought to the surface when the silver-mine was formerly wrought here, and had been suffered to remain for fifty years undisturbed among heaps of rubbish: thus an additional quantity was procured; but the mass of cobalt was speedily exhausted, as that of silver had formerly been, and it was found necessary to abandon the work. A register of the operations, however, is said to be in existence; and that the different metals found, besides silver and cobalt, were lead, copper, and iron, and also of arsenic, which always exists in large quantities, united to the cobalt, and forming what is called a mineralizer, from which it must be purified before it can be converted into the blue powder used in the manufactories of porcelain. It may be proper here to add, that the late Lord Alva, one of the Senators of the College of Justice, from some of the silver-ore which remained in his possession, caused a pair of communion, cups to be made for the use of the parish of Alva, with the following inscription: "Sacris in Ecclesia S. Servani, "apud Alveth, A. D. 1767, ex Argento indigeno, "D. D. C.. JACOBUS ERSKINE." Minerals. Coal, The hills to the eastward also, in the parishes of Tilli coultry and Dollar, contain similar appearances of valuable minerals. In the former of these parishes, upwardsof fifty years ago, in what is called the Millglen, a copper-mine was wrought to a considerable extent by an English company. The thickest stratum or vein was about eighteen inches; and four different strata were found. After the work had been carried on for several years, it was abandoned, as having become unprofitable. In the same hills much ironstone is found, and large quantities of the ball-ironstone, which we formerly described. In the same mountains, farther eastward, above the village of Dollar, lead and copper mines were at one period wrought; and silver-ore has been found in Glencairn, to the westward of Castle Campbell, but the quantity was found insufficient to defray the expence of working it, At the foot of the Ochils, as already mentioned, the coal-field immediately commences; and throughout the whole district there are numerous colleries, from some of which considerable quantities of that mineral are exported. In consequence of the abundance of coal and ironstone, an iron-work has been erected at Sauchie, in the parish of Clackmannan, under the firm of the Devan Company. They chose a steep bank, on the south side of the river Devan, for the situation of their works, where there was a considerable quarry; which induced. them to try an experiment, whether the excavating the quarry would not give them more conveniency, and at a less expence, than quarrying the stones and building their works at a small distance from it. They have two blastfurnaces for the manufacture of pig-iron; and to endeavour to give unusual steadiness and uniformity to the blast of their cylindrical bellows, they send the air through a |