SEPTEMBER 353 



curious thing Is the strange superiority of the ordinary Scotch 

 over the ordinary English preacher. At one time or another I have 

 attended various Scotch churches, and never yet did I hear a bad 

 sermon ; indeed, some of those addresses struck me as masterly. 

 I doubt whether the haphazard visitor to English village churches 

 would be able to say as much. It is obvious, too, that the general 

 intelligence of the average country churchgoers in Scotland must 

 be much higher than that of the corresponding class in England, 

 I am convinced that few members of an agricultural congregation 

 in the Eastern Counties would follow the closely reasoned and 

 often recondite arguments of the preacher with as much zest and 

 understanding as do his hearers in the most out-of-the-world parts 

 of Scotland. 



Boswell talks of a lead mine in Coll, that must have been some- 

 where in this direction, which he actually visited with Dr. Johnson, 

 although now all knowledge of it seems to have been lost. After 

 church I asked the minister if he knew anything of such a 

 mine. He said. No, but that he had some curious stones in 

 his garden. I went to look at them, and among them found a 

 lump of what appeared to be lead ore. It had been picked up 

 on the sea-beach below the manse, which suggests that the vein 

 cannot be far off. That afternoon on our homeward way, while 

 walking down a hillside, I noticed a curious looking boulder, 

 which, on examination, seemed to be permeated with lead, and so 

 rotten that by the help of another stone I was able to break 

 specimens off it. It looks, therefore, as though lead exists some- 

 where in the neighbourhood, though whether in workable quantity 

 or not only an expert can tell.' 



Having drank some water at the manse spring, we started to 

 walk up Benhogh in order to visit the great stone which lies upon 

 the top of it. This stone Boswell saw also, but not Dr. Johnson, 

 who was too heavy to climb the hill. Boswell states that the stone 



' I hear that analysis of the specimens does not confirm these hopes. 

 Probably, like myself, Boswell and the people of his day were deceived by 

 some mineral closely resembling lead in weight and appearance. 



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