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REPORTS ON EXCURSIONS. 91 
says that the witches used to dance inside the circle formed by 
the seven stems. 
Bargarran is notorious, not merely for a witches’ tree, but for 
its association with trials in Scotland for witchcraft—that horrible 
superstition which forms so foul a stain on the ecclesiastical history 
of our country. The person who pretended to have been tormented 
was Christian Shaw, 11 years of age, daughter of John Shaw of 
Bargarran. Three men and four women were condemned to death 
as guilty of the crime of witchcraft, and six were burned on the 
Gallowgreen of Paisley on 10th June, 1697, one of the men having 
committed suicide in prison. 
But more honourable associations than these are connected with 
Christian Shaw and Bargarran, for “ having acquired a remarkable 
dexterity in spinning fine yarn, she conceived the idea of manu- 
facturing it into thread. Lady Blantyre carried a parcel of the 
thread to Bath, and disposed of it advantageously to some 
manufacturers of lace, and this was probably the first thread made 
in Scotland that had crossed, the Tweed.” About this time, a 
friend of the family, being in Holland, learned some of the secrets 
of the thread manufacture which was then carried on to a great 
extent in that country. This knowledge he communicated on his 
return to his friends in Bargarran, and they were thus enabled to 
carry on the manufacture with greater success, until Bargarran 
thread became extensively known and bore a good price. Even- 
tually the secrets. of the trade were divulged to outsiders, and 
among others to a Mr. Pollock in Paisley, who thereby laid the 
foundation of the extensive trade with which the name and 
fortunes of that town are so closely associated. 
The site of the old house of Bargarran is about three-eighths of 
a mile west from the present farm-house of that name. About 
the same distance to the south is a ridge covered by a wood, which 
is reputed to produce the best timber (chiefly ash) on the estate. 
_ The soil is thin, and the subsoil consists of broken rock. The 
ridge is evidently caused by two long east and west trap-dykes 
which cross the river at Rashielee and run out in the bedded trap 
near Barochan. But they are of much later date than this bedded 
trap, and apparently of miocene age, or contemporaneous with 
the great volcanic outflow which built up the plateau of which 
Ben More in Mull, Staffa, the Giant’s Causeway, dc., are the sorely 
