The Scottish Naturalist. 259 



being presented to the French king by the Regent Morton (Fittis). 

 Grey was followed, in his turn, by an English adventurer, George 

 Bo7ves, whose operations were most important, in so far as he is 

 the first who is said to have found gold quartz in situ — in a vein — 

 at Wanlockhead. He sunk a shaft, or shafts ; but " when he and 

 his men had filled their purses, then he caused the shaft to be filled 

 up again, swearing his men to secrecy," these men being " both 

 English and Scots workmen " (Fittis). We are told that he erected 

 a stanipi}ig-7nill on the Longcleuch head — a circumstance whose 

 significance will form the subject of special remark further on. 

 He was to have returned next year to Scotland " to seek for a 

 greater vein," but died by an accident in the interval. Another 

 speculator, a foreigner, Hochstetter, '' had certain intelligence of 

 the vein " — that is, no doubt, heard of its discovery, and made 

 search for it, but failed to find it ; and the same unsuccess ap- 

 pears to have attended the many other mining authorities, who 

 afterwards made the most anxious search for Bowes's shaft and 

 vein. And yet Dr Porteous speaks of its locality being known to 

 the Wanlockhead miners of the present day. 



In 1576 "an unquestionable proof that quantities of gold con- 

 tinued to be gathered in Scotland is furnished by an Edict of the 

 Privy Council,'' which "forbade the gold-seekers in Crawford, 

 Roberton, and Henderland to sell their gold, as they had been 

 doing, to merchants, for exportation, and ordained them to bring 

 in all . . . to the King's Cunzie House " (the Royal Mint at 

 Edinburgh), " there to be sold at the accustomed prices for the 

 use of the State" (Fittis). 



In 1592 the king appointed a M.r John Lindsay to the new 

 office of " Master of the Metallis " in the Scottish Mint. The 

 new master was one of the Edzell (Forfarshire), not the Crawford 

 (or Lanarkshire) Lindsays, who afterwards became successively 

 one of the Lords of Session, as Lord Menmuir, Lord Privy Seal, 

 and Secretary of State. He was father of the first Lord Lindsay 

 of Balcarres. With his elder brother. Sir David Lindsay of 

 Edzell and Glenesk, he took an active interest in the discovery 

 of gold, in what has been aptly called the " Land of the Lind- 

 says,"^ in Forfarshire, where, too, it is of interest to note, gold 

 mines were successfully worked for a long series of years. 



In 1593 or 1594, to Thomas Foulis, an Edinburgh goldsmith, 

 was granted by the king a twenty-one years' lease of the gold 



^ The title of a book by Andrew Jervise, F.S.A. Scot., published in 

 1853. 



