discovered in a Garden at Stranraer. 87 
it elsewhere bears internal evidence of having been written sub- 
sequent to the year 1670. 
The passage regarding the ship is as follows : 
44 In this town (Stranraer), last year, when they were dig- 
ging a water-gate for a miln, they lighted upon a ship, a consi- 
derable distance from the shore, unto which the sea, at the 
highest spring-tides, never comes : It was (lying *) transversely 
under a little bourn, and wholly covered with earth, a consi- 
derable depth ; for there was a good yeard, with kail growing 
in it, upon the end of it. By that part of it which was gotten 
out, my informers, who saw it, conjecture that the vessel had 
been pretty large ; they also tell me, that the boards were not 
joyned together after the present fashion ; and that it had nailes 
of copper.” 
It is much to be regretted that this discovery had not been 
inspected by more curious eyes, and the particulars more accu- 
rately recorded. The nails of copper, almost irresistibly lead 
back the mind to a very remote period. 
The conjecture regarding the size of the vessel, having been 
formed from 64 that part of it which was gotten out,” would im- 
ply that the whole of it was not removed or uncovered ; and if 
so, as there appears no great improbability in supposing that 
the materials which had endured from the remote ages when 
copper-nails were used for such purposes, may also have with- 
stood the decay of 140 or 150 years longer, the remains of the 
vessel, which were left in situ , if not since removed, might per- 
haps still be recoverable. 
Edinburgh , 1st October 182& 
Art. VIII. — Further Remarks connected with the Physiology 
of the Fibres of the Root. By John Murray, F. L. S. 
M. W. S. &c. &c. Communicated by the Author. 
JNTumerous are the phenomena that might be reasonably ap- 
pealed to, in corroboration of the opinion which opposes the al- 
* This word is omitted in the copy taken for me, but there can be no doubt 
about the sense. 
