Extracts from Annan Burgh Records. 395 



Last August I cut several stalks of this plant when the flowers 

 were in full bloom, and to test their vitality they were put into 

 a vase without water. In two months or so the leaves had dried 

 up, and fell off at a touch, but the buds in their axils had grown 

 out at least half-an-inch. The shoots were strong and tinged 

 with red, and numerous rootlets were visible. One of the shoots 

 was planted in a pot, but it did not thrive any better than those 

 left on the parent plant. Onlv at present has it begun to 

 grow to an)- extent. For the last five months the shoots growin- 

 from the withered stem have been entirely dependent on the 

 atmosphere for their supply of moisture, which no doubt they 

 would absorb by means of their aerial roots. The present year's 

 shoots of the Livelong are now fully half-an-inch above ground 

 An example is shown, as also the small shoot planted ofl^ from 

 the withered stalk. 



17t/i February, 190,"*. 



Chairman — The President. 



Exhibit.— From Mr James Lennox, conical cap of bark 

 used by natives of Uganda. 



L— An Antiquary's Notes. By Mr George Neilson, LL.D. 

 Peel of Dumfries and Others. 

 Well known, and not to archaeologists onlv, is the 

 term 'Peel," applied to the small rectangular 'towers of 

 stone which stud the south of Scotland towards the English 

 march. It is always interesting to break up the record of a term 



ike this and to find that behind it, remote and forgotten, there 

 lies an earlier sense. The records of the War of Independence 

 sufficiently establish these not uninteresting propositions-that 

 m 1298 the Peel made at Lochmaben by Edward I. was made 

 by sawyers and carpenters; that in 1300 the Peel made round 

 about the castle of Dumfries was of timber cut and sawn and 

 shaped in the forest of Inglewood in England ; and that in 1,02 

 the Peel of Selkirk, although it had a gateway faced with stone 

 was essentially of the same character-an enclosed area fortified 

 by a surrounding ditch, the banks of which were crowned bv a 



