s.

EXTINCT VOLCANOS AND MOUNTAINS OF GOLD IN SCOTLAND.

It is by some supposed that the Hill of Noth, in the parish of Rhynie,
Aberdeenshire, had at one time been a volcano in full operation: others,
again, maintain that the scoria found on and in the neighbourhood are
portions of a vitrified fort, which had at one time stood on its summit. I
am not aware that the matter has been investigated since our advancement in
the science of geology has enabled us to have a more intimate knowledge of
these things than formerly. The last statistical account of Scotland has
suffered severely in its Aberdeenshire volume, in consequence of the
temporary deposition of the "seven Strathbogie clergymen." The accounts of
their several parishes were written by parties only newly come to reside in
them, and who appear to have taken little interest in it; and Rhynie is one
of these. Those who argue for its having been a volcano, say that it is
very possible that there may at one time have been an electric or magnetic
chain connecting it with subterranean fire in some other quarter of the
world; and that by some convulsion of nature, the spinal cord of its
existence had been broken, and life became extinct. This hypothesis has
been acted on, in accounting for the earthquakes which occur at Comrie in
Perthshire. The great storm which devastated the princely estates of Earl
Goodwin in Kent (circa anno 1098), and now so well known to mariners as the
Goodwin Sands, is also said to have laid waste the parish of Forvie, in
Aberdeenshire. On the occasion of the great earthquake at Lisbon in 1755, a
flock of sheep were drowned in their cot in the neighbourhood of
Lossiemouth, near Elgin, by the overflowing of the tide, although far
removed from ordinary high-water-mark. Assuming this mountain to have been
a volcano, are there any others in Great Britain? While on the subject of
mountains in that quarter, there is another which also demands attention
for quite a different reason, the Hill of Dun-o-Deer, in the parish of
Insch: a conical hill of no great elevation, on the top of which stand the
remains of a vitrified fort {286} or castle, said to have been built by
King Gregory about the year 880, and was used by that monarch as a
hunting-seat and where, combining business with pleasure, he is said to
have meted out even-handed justice to his subjects in the Garioch. It has
long been the popular belief that this hill contains gold; and that the
teeth