122 Antiquities, &c., of Cramond District. [Sess. 



what they caught was sold to Dutch vessels at the average 

 price of 4s. the herring barrel; and the oyster-scalps were 

 then so productive, that it was usual for a boat with five 

 hands to make 30s. per day. There are now no oyster 

 fisheries. I have a faint recollection of seeing boats dredg- 

 ing for oysters, the men chanting a peculiar song while rowing 

 their boats. The Amon formerly abounded with a variety of 

 fish, such as trout, grilse, and plenty of smelts, but the 

 Almond is now so much polluted that no fish of any kind can 

 live in it. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the 

 fishings were the subject of a keen litigation between the 

 Earl of Eosebery and Sir John Inglis of Cramond; and 

 this cause was determined by the Court of Session in 1695 

 finding that each had a right of fishing on his own side of the 

 water to the middle of the stream. But Xord Eosebery was 

 so little satisfied with this determination, the more especially 

 as some of the witnesses deponed that they knew the proprietor 

 of Barnbougle debar all others and let in tack the exclusive 

 privilege of fishing for 50 or 60 merks yearly, that in 1708, 

 immediately after the Union, he appealed to the House of 

 Lords. Thereupon Sir John Inglis, rather than contest the 

 afiair further, entered into a compromise by which he gave up 

 all right to the fishings, and in return got from the earl the 

 gallery still possessed by his family in Cramond Church. 



Upon the very extensive tract of lands along the shore of 

 this parish left dry at low water, whales have sometimes been 

 stranded. On 2nd February 1690, no less a number than 

 twenty-five (supposed to be the pUot or caaing whale), though of 

 the very smallest sort, were left by the tide on the sands south 

 of Cramond Island. Most of them measured 12 feet in 

 length, but the lesser did not in general exceed 9 or 10. In 

 1701 a male whale, measuring 52 feet in length and 30 feet 

 in circumference, and having 46 teeth in the under jaw, was 

 cast ashore near the town of Cramond. In 1736 one was 

 stranded at Granton, and in 1740 one at Hunter's Craig: in 

 1769 another was stranded at the latter place, and in the 

 same year one at Cramond Island. This last is described 

 by Pennant, ' British Zoology,' vol. iii. p. 81. 



Be-ni, Agriculture, and Prodtice. — From a manuscript collec- 

 tion of charters, &c., in the Advocates' Library, it appears 



