350 The Scottish Naturalist. 



2. The Report on the Gold-Mmes of Crawford Moor contained 

 in MS. in the British Museum Library (Harleian MSS.), and 

 which I have described in these papers as the " Cottonian 

 MSS., "^ and their anonymous author as the *' Cottonian Re- 

 porter." ^ According to Mr Cochran-Patrick, these valuable frag- 

 ments of MS. " were written apparently either by Bowes or one 

 of his party," which would make their date about the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century.^ 



3. The Reports of his gold-digging operations about Wanlock- 

 head by Bowes himself, of date 1604. 



4. The Act of Parliament in favour of Stevin Atkinson, of date 

 June 1616. 



This Act refers to the " extraction " of gold : a phrase which 

 might refer equally to surface soil or drift as to rock ifi situ. The 

 King's'* object in granting the Act was obviously the discovery of 

 a " vaine " of gold or gold-quartz (' Records,' p. 168) ; and this 

 was the object equally of the operations of Bowes, Buhner, and 

 the other mining engineers or gold prospectors whose names have 

 been already specified.^ 



5. The Royal Lease to Dr Hendlie in 162 1, which specifies 

 ('Records,' p. 170), " minerall gold or gold vre lyand within 

 the seames or vaynes, or dispersit in the earth." 



6. The Royal Contract with Cornelius de Vols, of date March 



^567. 



7. The Act of Parliament in favour of Thomas Foullis, Gold- 

 smith, Edinburgh, dated January 1593. 



8. The Act of Parliament of 1424, claiming all gold-mines for 

 the King. 



The only evidence contained in Mr Cochran-Patrick's ' Early 

 Records ' of the occurrence of auriferous quartz in the Wanlock- 

 head district is the following : He says that by Buhner " a piece 

 of Sapper-stone^ — probably quartz — was found at Longcleuch- 

 head, weighing 2 lb., from which, when it was broken, i oz. of 

 gold was taken " (Introduction, p. xix). An anonymous letter, 



1 In a letter of same date Mr Cochran-Patrick tells me that this MS. is 

 often quoted, **but it is only a fragment, having been much injured in the 

 fire of 1726. I have, however, printed the cot)ipletc text from another copy 

 taken before the MS. vv^as injured, or perhaps from the original from which 

 the other was a copy," 



2 Vide * Scottish Naturalist,' p. 265. ^ Ibid., p. 259. 



4 James VI. ^ Ibid., pp. 25S-262. 



^ Vide 'Scottish Naturalist,' p. 308, footnote. 



