162 TRANSACTIONS. 
Field Meeting. st of June. 
A visit was paid to Crocketford and Springholm. Auchen- 
reoch Loch was circumambulated, many botanical specimens being 
collected. At a meeting, presided over by Mr George H. Robb, 
Dr Clarke and Miss Tennant were elected members. Mr James 
Barbour exhibited a copy of Innes’s History of the Buchanites, 
several leaves being in Innes’s own handwriting, and also a copy of 
the proceedings taken against the Buchanites by the Sheriff Court. 
The party then drove along the old military road, round part of 
Milton Loch, and arrived at the Hills Tower, Lochrutton, which 
was inspected. 
Field Meeting. 6th of July. (Described by Mr Wm. DIcKIE.) 
A visit was paid to Whithorn, where Dr John Douglas and Mr 
William Galloway acted as guides. The ruins of the Priory were 
carefully examined, and then visits were paid to the Roman Camp, 
St. Ninian’s Cave, and the ruins of St. Ninian’s Kirk in the Isle of 
Whithorn. Finally the ruins of the old Norman church of 
Cruggleton were explored. At a meeting presided over by Major 
Bowden, Dr Douglas and Mr Galloway of Whithorn, Mr George 
Hamilton and Mr R. M‘Conchie of Kirkcudbright, and Mr Alex. 
Ferguson, solicitor, were elected members. 
It is the ruined Priory which invests Whithorn with such 
strong attractidns for the antiquary, and to it the visitors pro- 
ceeded, admiring by the way the ample thoroughfare and the tidy 
appearance of the long main street of the town. The existing 
charter conferring on Whithorn burghal rank and privileges was 
granted by King James IV., the most assiduous of the Scottish 
kings in his devotion to the shrine of St. Ninian, but it is under- 
stood that this was only a renewal of an earlier charter emanating 
from Robert the Bruce. The change of the commercial highway 
from the sea to the railway has injuriously affected it, like many 
other outlying towns, and has diminished its municipal revenue, of 
which the mainstay used to be the dues charged at the port of Isle 
of Whithorn, three miles from the town. But it bears its adversity 
placidly, and its appearance indicates a fair measure of prosperity 
among the burgesses. The old Town Hall and Tolbooth is a plain 
building, with square tower and extinguisher-shaped spire, sur- 
mounted by a ship in full rig by way of vane. It is not of great 
antiquity, having been built only about 1820 ; but it has already 
