Field Meetings. 353 



vivid blue needles — Douglas and Menzies pines, and other 

 more familiar trees, there is a plot of seedlings of the hardy 

 and graceful North American Conifer Thuja, of the variety 

 Ciigantea, which attains to great dimensions, and to which 

 those interested in British forestry are looking as a great 

 timber tree of the future. 



A number of the trees on the estate were measured in 

 1898 [Trmisactious, N.S. 14, pp. 104-5), ^^^^ ^^^ ^'- Gray, the 

 forester on the estate, has supplied us with fresh measure- 

 ments. The largest silver fir, which in 1898 had a girth of 

 183 inches, was blown down eight or ten years ago. The 

 largest silver fir now standing is 148 inches at five feet from 

 the ground. A large limb was blown off this tree on 5th 

 November, 191 1 ; it measured 60 feet 5 inches in length and 

 girth at 30 feet, 93 inches in circumference. The larch 

 brought from Blair Athol shows the following development : — 

 1872. Girth of 14 feet at ground and 9 feet at height of 8 feet. 

 1898. Girth of 16.9 in. at ground and 10 ft. 6 in. at height of 



8 feet. 

 1912. Girth of 17.2 in. at ground and 1 1 ft. at height of 8 feet. 

 Two fine old Scots firs at Entrance Gate, standing only 

 three feet apart, measure, at five feet from ground, 1 16 inches 

 in girth. 



To the antiquary the chief interest of the day centred in 

 the small burial cairns, about forty in number, on the hill of 

 Craigdarroch Farm. These were recently brought to notice 

 by Mr Dalziel, shepherd in the employment of Mr Paterson, 

 and Mr M'Connel had them marked with upstanding sticks so 

 that they might be more readily observed by his visitors. 

 They occur in groups ; and sitting on one part of the moor 

 as many as fifteen could be counted scattered in a roughly 

 circular formation. 



Just before noting the first of the tumuli, which occur at 

 an altitude of roughly eleven hundred feet, the attention of 

 the visitors was drawn to the remnant of the Deil's Dyke, or 

 Celtic Dyke, a low earthen bank of which traces are found 

 throughout Galloway, from Lochryan in the extreme west, 

 and in Dumfriesshire, from the Ayrshire boundary on the farm 

 of Cairn, in the parish of Kirkconnel, down the Nith valley 



