160 Letter from Dr. Wm. Meade. 



thg first person who on the ensuing morning noticed that it 

 had been rennoved during the night. 



I lost no time in seeing the old man whose name is Al- 

 exander MacgilHvray, and I was lucky enough to find him 

 at home, he informed me that this remarkable circum- 

 stance took place on the night between Friday the 19th, 

 and Saturday the 20th of February, in the year 1799. 

 There had been a very severe frost, and the greater part 

 of the little bay had been for some time covered with ice, 

 which was probably formed there the more readily owing to 

 the fresh water from the stream running near to Castle Stu- 

 art, emptying itself into the inlet of the sea in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood. The stone was, by this means, fast 

 secured by the ledge, which I have described being bound 

 round by a vast cake of ice of many yards in extent, which 

 being froze hard under the projection of the stone, must 

 have produced an admirable mechanical means for its ele- 

 vation, for which purpose it afforded an extensive draft. 

 The miller told us he had measured some of the ice and 

 found it eighteen inches thick. The stone was then sur- 

 rounded when the sea left it at its ebb, and the whole of 

 the circumjacent land was left covered by this solid and 

 unbroken glacier. It is evident that as the sea began again 

 to flow, this would be naturally buoyed up by the return- 

 ing water insinuating itself underneath it on the night of 

 the 19th of February, the tide which happened to be re- 

 markably high, was full about 12 o'clock. About this time, 

 the wind began to blow a hurricane, accompanied with 

 drifting snow. The old man stated that this tremendous 

 storm blew directly from Dulcross Castle, and accordingly 

 I found that by placing myself at the stone and looking at 

 Dulcross, the post marking the former situation of the mass 

 appeared quite in the line between those two points, and 

 that the strait line or furrow described by the stone in the 

 course of its voyage lay in this direction. 



When the old miller got up on the morning of Saturday, 

 the 26th, the storm and drifted snow was such that he could 

 hardly make his way to his barns, though they are but a 

 few yards distant from his dwelling house. When the 

 weather had moderated in some degree, and the storm and 

 snow had cleared away, so that he could see across the lit- 

 tle bay, he remarked to his wife with much astonishment 



