MB BAIRD ON THE " FA1BY STONES." 75 



variably found by collectors in the bed of the stream, and from their 

 singular shapes and equivocal sort of origin, have most probably given 

 the name of the " Fairy Dean" to the little valley in which they are 

 usually found. These stones are well known to the inhabitants of the 

 neighbourhood, and seem to be regarded by many with no small venera- 

 tion. Well known, however, though they are, I have not been able, ex- 

 cept in one trifling book, to meet with a single notice or remark upon 

 the subject This book I do not now remember the title of, but its ob- 

 ject, as far as I can at present recollect, is to serve as a guide to strangers 

 visiting the neighbourhood of Melrose and Abbotsford. In this little 

 work, the author sums up both his description of the external appearance 

 of these stones, and his opinion of their origin, in two short lines. 

 " Here occur," says he, " some curiously shaped stones, which are said 

 to be found after great falls of rain ;" " and which are justly supposed," 

 as he adds in a note, " to be the petrifactions of some mineral spring 

 hard by." Whether this supposition was the author's own invention or 

 not, or whether, along with his own, he expressed the opinion of any 

 other observers, I know not ; but I fear the explanation which he offers, 

 will hardly satisfy those who examine these substances even with the 

 most common attention. They evidently bear no earthly similitude to 

 a " petrifaction" (if that word at least is to be understood in its proper 

 meaning), and I know of no " mineral spring hard by" possessing any 

 such qualification as that alleged. This idea, therefore, appearing so 

 unsatisfactory, it will be necessary to have recourse to some other ex- 

 planation ; and accordingly, on talking over the subject with some ac- 

 quaintances, I have heard two other opinions upon the subject, which I 

 shall next very shortly notice. The one is, that they may have been 

 originally portions of a soft clay rock, occurring somewhere towards the 

 head of the gleu, which, having been detached from their native situa- 

 tion by the action of the stream or weather, had gradually been worn 

 into their present fantastic shapes by simple attrition in the channel of 

 the rivulet : and the other, which, before visiting the scene personally, 

 I was inclined to think sufficiently satisfactory, is, that they may have 

 been originally imbedded portions or nodules contained in an amygda- 

 loidal rock, that is to say, nodules of fine clay, which, by infiltration from 

 above, had gradually found their way into the cavities with which that 

 kind of rock abounds, and which, partly by the influence of the weather, 

 and partly by the occasional violence of the water, had been forcibly 

 disengaged, and carried down into the bed of the stream where we now 

 find them. Neither of these opinions do I now consider as correct ; for, 

 with regard to the former supposition, if they were merely portions of a 

 day rock, formed into their present shapes by simple attrition and the 

 unceasing flow of the waters over them, why, it might be asked, do we 

 not find such stones in every similar situation where clay rocks occur ? 

 and why should the Allan Water manufacture such curiosities, and no 



