The Scottish Naturalist. 311 



iwexe possibilities, are apt to be quoted, by one author after an- 

 other, as actual facts ; and the natural consequence is, that all 

 inferences based upon these supposed facts are simply worthless. 

 I cannot doubt that there has been not a little of this loose or 

 erroneous quotation from ancient records ^ concerning the gold- 

 fields of other parts of Scotland, as well as of Lanarkshire and 

 Dumfriesshire. 



One other illustration of the variety of quotations of the same 

 text, and of the effects of this variety, must here be given, because 

 it is intimately connected with certain calculations as to the value 

 of the gold-produce of Crawford, already given (at p. 264). Ac- 

 cording to Mr Dudgeon, the Cottonian Reporter states that 

 certain " valleis have (yielded) therein of greater value than one 

 hundred thousand pounds y\early)r ^ Dr Porteous repeats this, 

 /;/ ipsissimis verbis^ — no doubt copying from Mr Dudgeon's 

 pamphlet of 1875. But Calvert's version runs thus (p. 135) : 

 " Valleys have (yielded gold) therein of greater value than one 

 hundred thousand pounds ; (yet by the) people working for gold," 

 and so forth. The correctness of his version is shown by the 

 original text as given by Mr Cochran Patrick/ which is as fol- 

 lows : " Valleyes have byne washed and gold gotten thearein of 

 greater valine then one hondred thousand pound es, yet in so 

 many yeares, and so many people wotkynge for goulde no vaynes 

 of gold have byne knowne to be founde." In other words, ac- 

 cording to Dudgeon and Porteous, the animal yield of gold was 

 ;^ioo,ooo worth; while, according to Calvert and Patrick, this 

 amount of gold was yielded only in eighty years. At the time when 

 I made the calculations already given (at p. 264), I had before 

 me only three of the foregoing versions of the Cottonian Re- 

 port — the original text of Mr Cochran Patrick not having 

 reached me till April (1878). Finding Mr Dudgeon and Dr 

 Porteous to agree in representing the yield as an anjitial one, 

 and believing their version — given in 1875 and 1876 — likely to 

 be more correct than Calvert's — given in 1852 — I based my cal- 

 culations on the supposition that there was, for eighty years, an 

 annual yield of ;^i 00,000 worth of gold. It proves now, however, 



^ Comparing, for instance, the various versions given by Calvert, Porteous, 

 Dudgeon, and Patrick, of the narratives of the same old chroniclers — the 

 Cottonian Reporter and Atkinson — I find the most surprising discrepancies. 



^ Paper in the ' Mineralogical Magazine,' p. 24. 



^ ' God's Treasure-House, ' p. 35. 



■* Introduction to his ' Records of Mining,' p. xxi. 



