EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 6^ 



bags, wliich carry 2 cwt. for the facility of carrying 

 and shipping, while the south country Cheviot and 

 half-bred wools mostly arrive in sheets. 



The centre building has a great variety of home and 

 foreign skins, principally from Buenos Ayres, in bales 

 bound with steel hoops. The wools pulled from them. 

 are classed into three sorts, according to the part of the 

 sheep they belong to. The fellmongers get the skins, 

 and pull them after sweating, and sell the wool, and the 

 skin is converted into parchment or leather. About 

 100 bales of New Zealand wool were lying there. It 

 is very pure and white in its colour, finer than. 

 Cheviot, and shorter, although some is long and. 

 suitable for combing, and it is in demand both for 

 tweeds and hosiery. The contents of the Round 

 Towers of five fiats are more various. Lamb skins 

 figure as "morts,^^ and sell from IJd. to 2d.; and 

 Shetland pickings lie cheek by jowl with German 

 flipes, seal skins from Orkney, otter skins from Mullj 

 and calf skins from everywhere. 



The North Hall is full of the finest specimens of 

 bred and half-bred"^' wools, from Caithness, the 

 Lothians, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Peebleshire. 

 Morayshire, and Fifeshire. Early in 1864?, on^ 

 sample fetched 2s. 5|d. per lb., the highest price, 

 known since 1818; but since then one or two 

 others have reached as high as 2s. 7Jd. The wools 

 are all reclassed after examination by the buyers, 



* Bred = Leicester ; Half-bred = Leicester and Cheviot ; Half-bred Cr&s-s — 

 Blackface and Leicester ; Cross = Blackface and Clie\'iot. 



