LORD WOODHOUSELEE. 537 



animously elected one of the Secretaries of the Literary Class,- 

 — an office which he continued to fill with zeal for many 

 years ; and in the execution of which he drew up that " Account 

 " of its Origin and History" which is prefixed to the 1st vo- 

 lume of its Transactions. 



In 1788, he contributed to the Royal Society a biographical 

 Memoir of the late Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Presi- 

 dent of the Court of Session,— -a paper valuable, not only for 

 the just and vigorous delineation which it gives of the charac- 

 ter of that eminent Judge, but for the interesting account it 

 affords of some of the earlier branches of a familv, so Ions and 

 so honourably distinguished in the legal annals of Scotland. 



In 1789, Mr Tytler read a paper to the Royal Society up- 

 on the Vitrified Forts in the Highlands of Scotland. Of these 

 singular antiquities, the prevailing theory had been, that the 

 vitrification was produced in the process of their erection, and 

 that it was the substitute of a rude age for cement. The theory 

 which Mr Tytler suggested was the reverse of this ; — that the 

 vitrification was the result, — not of their erection, but of their 

 destruction, — and that it was produced by the efforts of ene- 

 mies in attempting this destruction by fire. The theory is cer- 

 tainly not without some appearances of probability : it assimi- 

 lates sufficiently with the period of society to which such build- 

 ings undoubtedly refer ; and Mr Tytler was able to support 

 it with learning and ingenuity. Of the impression it made at 

 the time upon the Society, I am happy to be able to refer to 

 an evidence of no little weight, in a letter from our late illus- 

 trious associate Mr Smith to Mr Tytler upon the subject ; 

 and, although the letter is very short, I persuade myself that it 

 w r ill not be unacceptable to the Society, both because there 

 are unhappily very few letters of this great man remaining, 

 and because it involves also the memory of some other men, 



whose 



