Field Meetings. 215 



after the date of the Disruption. In the interval they had met 

 Sabbath by Sabbath in the open air beside the rising walls of 

 the church, the preacher only being protected from the weather 

 by a pulpit tent. The manse, that sits so beautifully, crowning 

 the little hill-top, Dr Duncan did not himself occupy. He was 

 assisted for some time by the Rev. Mr Duns, who afterwards 

 became a professor ; and before the manse was completed the 

 Rev. Mr Brown had been ordained as his colleague and suc- 

 cessor, and Dr Duncan removed to Edinburgh. In February 

 of the following year (1846) he returned on a visit to the parish 

 which had been the scene of his long and manifold labours, and 

 there he was seized with fatal illness while in the act of preaching 

 at a week-night district meeting at Cockpool. The church was 

 originally of the double-roof type commonly adopted at the time. 

 It was reconstructed and furnished with a different type of roof 

 in 1859 ; and fourteen years ago it was remodelled internally in 

 a tasteful mani»er. As part of the work undertaken in 1859 a 

 vestry was built at the north end of the church, and in its gable 

 wall have been inserted several stones evincing Dr Duncan's 

 attainments as a scientist and his interest in archteology. One 

 is a slab of the new red sandstone from Corncockle quarry, 

 bearing some twenty footprints of the Labrynthidon, a four- 

 footed animal of the tortoise tribe, which had disported itself 

 on the sands of the primeval sea. The discovery by Dr Duncan 

 of the evidence of animal life so highly developed during the 

 new red sandstone period was an epoch-making incident in the 

 development of geology. Beside this slab are two sculptured 

 stones, on each of which is the figure of a sword ; on another an 

 instrument, generally assumed to be a spade, but with florid, 

 ring-pattern handle. One also bears what appear to be the 

 sock and coulter of a plough ; and on the other is an object 

 bearing resemblance to a huntsman's whip. They are believed 

 to have come from an establishment of the Knights Templars 

 in the district; and an inverted bowl of stone, also built into the 

 wall, is believed to have been a baptismal font of the same 

 place. Be.side the church, and hidden in large measure from 

 the road by a screen of trees, stands a handsome monument to 

 Dr Duncan. It is in the form of an obeHsk supported upon a 

 massive pyramidal base and four receding arches, the whole 



