Field Meetings. 107 



pack lie arrived at Kirkconnel, and after settling with the wool 

 dealer returned home well mellowed with the liquor of the 

 country. Humming to himself as he went along, and overjoyed 

 at selling water for wool, he was heard to ejaculate — " Fair fa' 

 ye, Garpel ! Fourteen stane at Auchenhessnane and sixteen at 

 Kirkconnel !" 



Returning to Sanquhar, the company had tea together in the 

 Queensberry Arms Hotel ; and Dr Maxwell Ross embraced the 

 opportunity to tender thanks to the gentlemen who had placed 

 their local knowledge at their service during the day. 



Second Field Meeting— July 23rd. 



The following report of the meeting is taken from the 

 Dumfries Courier and Herald : — 



An outing with the antiquarians is I'eckoned by most people 

 too heavy a summer treat to be greedily sought after, the 

 intellectual strain involved in recollecting whatever one believed 

 himself to have complacently forgotten concerning the places 

 visited cancelling the otiose relaxation craved on a hot Saturday 

 in the dog-days. Hence, perhaps, the small, however eminently 

 select, company that gathered at the call of the indefatigable 

 secretary of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and 

 Antiquarian Society on purpose to visit under his genial 

 guidance the treasures not less of natural beauty than of 

 historical and modern interesst in the rich lands of the 

 Rirtle valley. We got there, to be sure, by train to Annan, 

 thence behind a pair of hired horses. Despite dull and threaten- 

 ing skies, the drive towards Kirkpatrick-Fleming (could no 

 genius invent a shorter name, or drop some of the consonants Vj 

 afforded a wide and exhilarating view of the Sol way as spanned 

 by the viaduct to Silloth, while darksome in the distance rose 

 the summits of the Cumberland lake mountains, and at least one 

 tall chimney could be discovered by strong eyes as an index on 

 the horizon to the whereabouts of " merry Carlisle." Stapleton 

 Towers soon stimulated the antiquarian mind, and mention of 

 the Edward Irving, by whom the Tower was built, recalled the 

 associations of the district with his descendant, the genius of the 



