The Scottish Naturalist. 261 



vert).i Well says Bulmer, after all his vicissitudes of fortune, 

 " Mines are as uncertain as the life of man, which is like a 

 bubble on the waters to-day — to-morrow none." Lavishly 

 liberal — " such as he was most liberal to were readiest to cut 

 his throat" — 



....*' When gold lay hid and unto us unknown, 

 Of strife and debate the seed was unsown ; 

 Then lived men well, and held themselves content 

 With food and clothes, and payed then no rent." 



Such is Atkinson's moralising over the rise and downfall of his 

 friend and master, the once princely Bulmer. Bulmer's reign 

 appears to have been the golden age of the " golden area " of 

 Crawford-Lindsay. During the sovereignty of his patroness. 

 Queen Elizabeth, Scotland Avas considered an El Dorado, and 

 Crawford as the El Dorado of Scotland — in very truth man's, if 

 not also God's, " Treasure-House " there. 



We come now to Atkinson himself, who was taught mining by 

 Bulmer, by whom he was brought to the Leadhills in search of 

 a "vein" of gold or gold -quartz — in all probability that vein 

 found, or reported to have been found, by Bowes. He tells 

 us himself that his great aim in coming to Crawford was " that 

 great blessing of God, . . . even that hedd or vaine of gold 

 and silver myne." He held a Royal warrant as a gold seeker and 

 worker there of "mynes, seames, and mineralles" of gold and 

 silver, " to searche, seik, worke, dig, try, discouver, and find out " 

 all about them; and he obviously regarded himself as a *'moy- 

 ner and pioner" — in modern parlance, a ''prospector" and 

 *' digger." His operations, of whatever nature they were, do not 

 appear to have been successful. At all events his fame rests on 

 his book, published in 1619, which has been a "digging," "a 

 Treasure-House," for all subsequent writers on the gold fields or 

 mines of Scotland. It was he who introduced the phrase 

 "God's Treasure-House "^ in Scotland as applicable to the Craw- 

 ford district, and who first drew a parallel between its four chief 

 streams and the four rivers of Eden. In his own words : " Pru- 

 dent men . . . compared those Scotts gold-mynes unto God's 



^Atkinson speaks of this scheme as a Royal " plott " — a device of the 

 king's ; and in all probability Bulmer himself gave the king the credit of it. 

 But Bulmer himself was nevertheless its probable projector, as he was one of 

 the only two persons who benefited by it. 



^ A title adopted by Dr Porteous for a recently-published work mentioned 

 in the Bibliography. 



F 



