The Scottish Naturalist. 355 



three museum exhibits in question are — in the order of the dates 

 of their discovery or of presentation — the following : — 



1. In the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh : a small 

 piece of auriferous quartz labelled as of date 1837. For the 

 sake of brevity and convenience, and for the reasons that will 

 appear in the sequel, I shall henceforth speak of this exhibit as 

 \kiQ, Jameson specimeti. 



2. In the British Museum, London : a larger piece, not, how- 

 ever, richly auriferous, bought in the district by Mr Bryce Wright 

 of Great Russell Street, London, and sold by him to the said 

 Museum in 1864. I shall hereafter refer to this exhibit as the 

 Wright specimen. 



3. In the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, another 

 large piece containing a considerable amount of gold, labelled 

 as having been found by A?idreu> Gemmell,i miner, in 1872, 

 and presented in 1877. I have, in various publications on the 

 gold-fields of Scotland, spoken of this exhibit as the Gemmell 

 quartzite, and shall hereafter, for the sake of uniformity of 

 nomenclature, refer to it as the Gemmell specimen. 



By far the most important of these exhibits, from all points of 

 view, is the last-named. But I do not propose describing or 

 discussing it in the present paper, for the following reasons, inter 

 alia : — 



1. It has already this year formed the subject of debate before 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh ^ and the Geological Society of 

 Glasgow,^ as well as more publicly in the leading newspapers of 

 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dumfries.'* 



2. Some of the debaters introduced the irrelevant and mis- 

 chievous element of personalities : in other words, finding their 

 position unprovable and untenable, they substituted for fact or 

 legitimate argument vilification of those whose position was too 

 obviously that of common-sense. And it is extremely difficult, if 

 not impossible at present, to criticise or analyse the singular his- 

 tory of the Gemmell specimen without still further rousing the 



1 It was not, however, found, as represented, by Andreiv Gemmell, but by 

 his son George, as is pointed out in an excellent resume of the history of the 

 Gemmell find given in an anonymous letter in the * North British Daily Mail ' 

 (Glasgow) of May 16, 1878, by " A Native" of the district, probably a lead- 

 miner, who shows, whatever he is, an intimate acquaintance with Wanlock- 

 head and its doings. 



2 On March 4, 1878. 3 Qn March 7 and 21, 1878. 



* Especially the 'Scotsman,' 'North British Daily Mail,' and 'Dumfries 

 Herald.' 



