in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 227 



which, from this source, may be expected, I will not enlarge. 

 Its fish, though numerous, are known to us by very few speci- 

 mens ; and, as for its gigantic monsters, we are hitherto only en- 

 abled to judge of them by broken relics : Ex pede Herculem. 



Great, however, as is the satisfaction from contemplating the 

 riches of the deposit of Burdiehouse, it is impossible that this 

 feeling should not be alloyed, in some degree, by the recollection 

 that these limestone quarries had been worked for perhaps half a 

 century, or more, at no greater distance from Edinburgh than 

 four short miles ; and that, during this period, countless bones, to 

 the irreparable injury of science, must have been sacrificed on the 

 fires of the adjacent limekiln. 



If we would form some little, yet at the best a very inade- 

 quate, notion of the extent of this continued destruction of os- 

 seous fragments which must have been going on throughout a 

 very prolonged period of time, we must descend into the caverned 

 chambers which constitute the old workings of the quarry. 



The old line of Burdiehouse quarries was, in the earliest stage 

 of its sinkings, so wrought as to present to view a deep perpen- 

 dicular escarpment ; which is the state of the newer quarry at pre- 

 sent. The strata of limestone, which are conjointly twenty-seven 

 feet in thickness, dip towards the south-east, at an angle of 25°. 

 Now, in order to extend these workings by deep excavations, im- 

 mense square pillars, wrought out of the rock, have been allowed 

 to remain, as the supports of a roof formed by the upper stratum 

 of the limestone, which roof, in its turn, sustains a great thick- 

 ness of superincumbent shale. 



These excavations are of considerable extent, greater even 

 than is rendered manifest. The quarry, which was originally laid 

 dry by an engine, became converted, upon its abandonment, into 

 a reservoir intended to contain the drainage-water, conducted by 

 subterranean channels, from a more elevated quarry of freestone. 

 Consequently, long-extended chambers he concealed beneath the 



Ff2 



