4 Anniversary Address. 



The names of many of the places in the immediate vicinity of 

 the Hills are interesting to the antiquarian and the student of 

 Scottish History. "Barns, Byres," I quote Mr Hardy "(both named 

 from being parts of an ancient grange), the three Garmiltons, now 

 Garletons, and another Barns, associated with the names of the 

 Stewarts, the Lindsays (Sir David Lindsay of the Mount being 

 one), the Setons, the Hepburns, the Kinlochs, and other historic 

 names, and Kilduff and Athelstaneford, that recall the memory of 

 the restless author of 'Douglas,' and the more venerated writer of 

 ' The Grave,' stand at the base, or on the spurs, of these hills. 

 Kilduff is a particularly bright white mansion, screened on the 

 north by a wood that mantles a hill-top above it. There are 

 Pictish, or at least Gaelic, place-names in the vicinity, such as 

 Drem, Kilduff, and Ballencrieff, but these indicate a newer stra- 

 tum of history than that characterised by the rude hill forts and 

 their outlying burial places, with inartistic clay urns and slab 

 cists." 



The walk was not productive of much in a natural history point 

 of view. Of the geology of the district passed over Mr Hardy 

 says : — "The rock on the outskirts of the Garletons, as laid bare 

 in a quarry near the public road to Aberlady, was a pale chest- 

 nut-coloured volcanic ash or claystone, accompanied by a broad 

 mass of trap that had disrupted the claystone. In the centre of 

 the hills the rock is porphyritic, and of deeper tints. The por- 

 phyry here is broken up into a series of separate peaked sub- 

 conical eminences, which form from a distance a conspicuous 

 serrated green ridge. A deep waterless valley penetrates them 

 lengthways, and descends to a broad level flat between 

 these hills and the hill of Kilduff. There are also a few cross 

 ravines, as among hills projected on a more extensive scale ; and 

 on what is called the Kae Heugh the rock becomes precipitous. 

 There is an extensive quarry near the central valley, where the 

 stones are broken with a machine put into action by steam, to 

 form road metal and material for garden walks. In proceeding 

 to the Hopetoun Monument the hematite mine was passed. 

 Some of the samples of mammillated iron ore extracted from it 

 are very fine. It is understood that the vein is by no means 

 exhausted, and may yet become available when there is a better 

 demand for the ore." 



Few plants worth recording were picked up. The magnificent 

 profusion of whin blossom on the hill slopes deserves record. 



