222 Notes on Maxton, by the Rev. M. H. Graham. 



was discovered the trunk of a tree, inclined somewhat towards 

 the east. With the usual ill-luck attending excavations, the 

 tree was thoughtlessly broken up ; but the late Lord Polwaith 

 obtained an excellent fragment, so friable, however, that un- 

 less it has been carefully preserved it must long since have 

 gone to dust. The workmen said there was a hr own powder 

 completely surrounding the trunk ; was this powder decayed 

 leaves, or rather the bark ? 



I shall now leave the quarry, as some "of our party will 

 visit it under the guidance of my antiquarian friend, Mr 

 Chisholm, our most respected school-master, to whom, let me 

 most gratefully acknowledge the very generous help he has 

 given me, in drawing up these notes. Mr Chisholm will also 

 conduct a party to Kingly Hall. This is an ancient camp 

 (whether Roman or British we cannot determine), situated 

 about Smiles to the east of us, near by the well-known tumulus 

 in front of Makerston House. He will also point out the 

 site of the old town of Rutherford, and its church yard ; the 

 grave-stones of which an improving farmer improved off the 

 face of the earth, by chopping down and burying them in his 

 drains ! As I have no desire to take the wind out of my 

 friend's sails, I shall not detain you longer at the camp fur- 

 ther than to enter my protest against recent historians placing 

 so much of its outer works in the parish of Roxburgh. There 

 was, I may state, another camp, or fort, in a field immediately 

 to the south-west of Ringly Hall, bearing the same name ; 

 and there are still some remains of the entrenchment of part 

 of a camp in a plantation on the south side of the road, where 

 the west avenue to Ruthei ford-mill separates from the turn- 

 pike. In a quarry near here were found, at every tirl, 

 quantities of human bones. From repeated investigations, Mr 

 Chisholm concludes, (and I humbly concur), that defences 

 had surrounded the fort on the north, as well as on the south 

 side ; but that the river Tweed, of whose changeful moods we 

 here possess many notable illustrations, has, in the course of 

 ages, swept these defences away by the process of active 

 undermining. 



Now, one sentence as to the geological aspects of our im- 

 mediate neighbourhood. The old red-sandstone obtains 

 throughout the greater part of the parish ; and wherever it 

 has been quarried there have been found scales of the Holop- 

 tychius. In some places, the formation lies conformably on 

 the trapean rock ; but above Craigour, three-quarters of a mile 



