Field Meetings. 229 



20th Septemhev, 1902.— Loch Urr, 



A field meeting of the Society was held on Saturday, 20th 

 inst., when a party numbering' about twenty drove to Loch Urr 

 with the object chiefly of inspecting an island which is commonly 

 supposed to be a crannog or ancient lake dwelling. Proceeding 

 by the Irongray road and Glenesslin, they made short halts at 

 Irougray churchyard and Routan Bridge. They had also oppor- 

 tunities by the waj' of noting the progress being made with the 

 construction of the Cairn Valley railway. On the other hand, as 

 they ascended Glenesslin the ruins of cottages, single and in 

 clusters, on the hill-side and by the road, bore witness to the 

 process of rural depopulation ; and the silent harvest field, where 

 a couple of hands attended the self-binder, in place of the merry 

 group of a past generation, indicated at once a cause and an 

 effect of the change. Loch Urr was reached about half-past one. 

 It is a hill lake of 125 acres (being- about half the size of Loch- 

 rutton), located in a '' wilderness of heath and rock," at an 

 altitude of 625 feet. Just over the hill Carlyle had no difficulty 

 in attaining what his friend Emerson styled " the necessity of 

 isolation which genius feels." From the peat bog are dug large 

 oaks and well grown birches and hazels ; but now only a rare 

 clump of trees breaks the monotony of the moor and marks the 

 site of a lonely dwelling. Except for a few shrubs and saplings 

 at the northern end, the shore of the loch is bare. Obviously 

 there has been a change in the soil or climatic conditions since 

 heavy timber flourished here. Three parishes meet at the loch — 

 Glencairn and Dunscore in Dumfriesshire, Balmaclellan in Kirk- 

 cud briglitshiie ; and the farms which encircle it are Loch Urr, 

 Craigenvey, Craigmuie, and Monybuie. There are two islands 

 off Craigenvey shore. In the narrow channel which separates 

 them is a slightly submerged roadway of stones, and the shore- 

 ward one, which is much the smaller of the two, has been con- 

 nected with the land by a similar path. It was to the larger 

 island that the attention of the visitors was principally directed. 

 This is a nesting place of the black-headed gull, and in the month 

 of May their eggs are laid upon almost every foot of its surface ; 

 but at this season the only indications of bird life are the sight of 

 an occasional water hen on the loch and the whir of the grouse 

 on the adjacent moors. The island is a bare oblong, roug-hly 150 



