574 



KIRKDALE. 



and by the general annexation act it was afterwards 

 vested in the crown. There was also in Kirkcud- 

 bright a church dedicated to St Andrew, which, 

 after the Reformation, was conferred on the burgh ; 

 and it appears that there was likewise a Franciscan 

 monastery, of which the records are altogether 

 silent. The establishment of St Cuthbert's church 

 was preceded or followed by the erection of a small 

 fort by the lords of Clalloway, which became in 

 later times a castle in the proprietary of the crown, 

 and caused the place to be put under the govern- 

 ment of a constable. During the domination of 

 the Douglasses in Galloway, Kirkcudbright became 

 a burgh of regality under their influence ; and on 

 their forfeiture, James II. erected the town into a 

 royal burgh, by a charter dated at Perth, the 26th 

 of October, 1455. Hector Boece, referring to it 

 soon after this period, calls it " ane rich town full 

 of merchandise," a character it most likely de- 

 served till injured by the troubles in the country. 

 The appearance of the town at the present day is 

 extremely pleasing, being regularly built, neat, and 

 clean, and at a distance it seems embosomed in the 

 foliage of a fine sylvan country. No town in 

 Scotland possesses such a proportion of new 

 houses ; the cause of which is to be found in an 

 arrangement among the inhabitants, by which a 

 certain number of houses are built by subscription 

 every year, and acquired by lot. In addition to 

 the modern appearance which the town has ac- 

 quired in this way, it is ornamented by the resi- 

 dences of many persons of good fortune, which, 

 instead of being scattered in the suburbs of the 

 town, as elsewhere, are placed in the streets, and 

 that in considerable numbers. The town now pos- 

 sesses little or no trade, and has no manufactures, 

 except hosiery on a small scale and the weaving 

 of cotton. The harbour is the best in the county ; 

 at ordinary spring tides the depth of the water is 

 thirty feet, and at the lowest neap tides, eighteen. 

 Population of burgh and parish in 1841, 3525. 



The distinguishing ornament of Kirkcudbright 

 is St Mary's Isle, the seat of the earl of Selkirk, 

 which lies about a mile south from the town far- 

 ther down the Dee. Originally an island between 

 the waters of this river and the swelling tide, it is 

 now a peninsula projecting into the bay, luxuriantly 

 wooded with oak, chestnut, walnut, and all the 

 finer species of forest trees ; and is, beyond all 

 question, one of the loveliest spots in Scotland. 

 The house was originally a priory, which was 

 founded either in the reign of David I. or his suc- 

 cessor Malcolm IV., in the tvelfth century, by 

 Fergus, lord of Galloway, and called " Prioratus 

 Sanctae Mariae de Trayll." The monks were 

 canons regular of the order of St Augustine. St 

 Mary's Isle was visited in 1778 by the celebrated 

 Paul Jones, when in command of an American 

 ship, with the view of carrying off the earl of Sel- 

 kirk as a hostage. The earl was absent, but the 

 crew took away the silver plate, which, however, 

 was afterwards returned by Paul Jones himself, 

 who purchased it from his men at his own expense 

 tor that purpose. 



KIRKDALE; a parish and village in the north 

 riding of the county of York, about twenty-five 

 miles N.N.E. of the city of York. Population in 

 1841, 1040. 



In the summer of 1821, a cavern was acciden- 

 tally discovered in this parish by some quarriers, 

 which has greatly attracted the attention of geol- 

 ogists and men of science from the number and 



character of fossil bones found therein. The rave 

 is situated in the side of a ravine, and its entrance 

 is an aperture less than five feet square, which a 

 person enters upon his hands and knees. The 

 greatest length to which the cave penetrates, is 

 from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, 

 and the interior is of very irregular breadth and 

 height, varying from two to seven feet, but seldom 

 exceeding the latter dimensions either way. The 

 roof is studded with pendant stalactite, or that de- 

 posit which is made by water filtrating through 

 limestone, and which, when laid on the floor of a 

 cave, is culled stalagmite. A coating of this stal- 

 agmite covers the bottom of the Kirkdale cave ; 

 beneath this is a layer of soft mud, about a foot in 

 depth ; and below this again, is a second coat ot 

 stalagmite, spread over the proper floor of the ca- 

 vity. Deprived of these coatings, the cave, it is 

 obvious, would be considerably more roomy. In 

 the lower part of the mud coating, and in the in- 

 ferior layer of stalagmite, were the animal remains 

 of the cave chiefly found. These consisted of the 

 bones of no less than twenty-three species of ani- 

 mals; namely, hyaena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox, weasel, 

 elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, three 

 species of deer, hare, rabbit, water-rat, mouse, 

 pigeon, raven, lark, a species of duck and partridge. 

 The bones, in all these cases, were broken into 

 angular fragments or chips, and were all more or 

 less decayed, though the gelatinous matter yet re- 

 mained in some of them. 



On these bones being discovered, the question 

 naturally suggested itself, How came they to be 

 accumulated into a cave, evidently of no great age, 

 geologically speaking into one spot in this man- 

 ner ? One mode of answering this query is, to 

 suppose that the animals may have retired there 

 spontaneously to die. Another solution of tlie 

 point is, that their carcases may either have been 

 drifted into it entire by the waters of a flood, or 

 the bones alone washed in, after their separation 

 from the flesh. Against both these explanations, 

 insuperable objections may be brought. The cave 

 could not have admitted the entire bodies of the ele- 

 phant or rhinoceros, living or dead ; had the bones 

 been drifted in singly, they would have been 

 smoothed more or less by rolling, and would have 

 been mixed with gravel and rolled pebbles. Neither 

 of these explanations, besides, accounts for the bro- 

 ken and splintered state of the bones, or for the great 

 numbers of teeth in comparison with other bones. 

 Many other objections might be adduced, but these 

 are sufficient to show the inefficacy of the theories 

 mentioned to explain the accumulation of these 

 bones in the Kirkdale cave. 



The explanation which professor Buckland 

 adopted, has every appearance of being correct. 

 He regards the cave as having been, during a long 

 succession of years, inhabited as a den by hyeenas, 

 who had dragged into its recesses the other animal 

 bodies, whose remains are found mixed with their 

 own. The number of facts brought forward in 

 support of this explanation by professor Buckland, 

 is very great. In the first place, the habits of 

 living hyaenas have been referred to, and it has been 

 found that these animals are in the habit of drag- 

 ging carcases towards their dens even those of 

 camels and other large creatures and this from 

 very considerable distances. It has been doubted, 

 indeed, whether hyaenas actually munch the bones 

 of their prey in their dens, but recent observations 

 go to substantiate the truth of this. Again, the 



