164 The Naturalist of Cwnbrae. 



He stated that about fifteen feet below the soil the 

 workmen had come upon charred wood where a fire 

 had been made, and that the remains of an old 

 kitchen-midden were close by, wherein shells and 

 fragments of bone had been plentifully met with, and 

 a layer of peat which would have been very acceptable 

 for fuel, if it had not been for a very offensive odour 

 that it gave off when burning, by which its use as 

 fuel was precluded. Peat has always a peculiar 

 smell, one that to many persons is not agreeable. 

 Partly, perhaps, for the sake of auld lang syne, Mr. 

 Robertson himself, so far from disliking the smell of 

 peat in general, has a partiality for it. Moreover, 

 whisky with the flavour of peat was at one time very 

 much esteemed by the drinkers of toddy. No in- 

 fluence of association, however, could make this 

 Annochie peat acceptable to his nostrils. It had, he 

 says, a noxious odour beyond any other that he had 

 ever heard of. The charred wood, under the thick 

 deposit of peat and clay, whatever its date may have 

 been, evidently belonged to the human period. 



While the Robertsons were conversing with the 

 farmer upon prehistoric remains and other subjects, 

 the gamekeeper of the estate joined the party, and 

 hearing their object mentioned, he said that he could 

 show them where some clay was exposed that con- 

 tained shells. This proved to be clearly a patch of 

 the same clay that lay under the peat of the old 

 working which they had just left. After taking a 

 supply of it, they began their return journey. 



The gamekeeper directed them the best road to 

 Peterhead, and escorted them a good piece of the way. 



