commend for these purposes the conventional signs published in the fifth number of the Memorial Topography, undoubtedly the best conventional signs hitherto invented, and therefore deserving of being brought into general use, which object their being introduced into your Atlas would no doubt assist? The signs for mineralogy might also be introduced for marking the situation of mines, and designating the component parts of ridges of mountains, &c. : thus the Atlas would not be merely geographical, but approach, as nearly as a convenient size would permit it, to topography; that is, be formed of that species of maps called chorographical.

As an apology for thus addressing a gentleman of whom I have no personal knowledge, and on points many of which probably are anticipated, I have only to plead a love for the science even from childhood, and an anxiety to see correctly and elegantly executed a work, which is of the greatest general utility, and not the least to those of my profession.

I have only to add, that, if I can be of any assistance to you, Sir, in your geographical pursuits, or otherwise, either in this island, or through my friends in any other part of the Mediterranean, I beg you will command me. I request to be put down as a subscriber for as early a copy of the Atlas, as this my application will warrant. Mr. Aspern of Cornhill, to whom I have written on the subject, will receive the numbers for me as they come out and pay for them.

THE MARCHIONESS OF STAFFORD TO
MR. PINKERTON.

Cleveland House, Jan. 19th, 1808.

If it had not been for the wish respecting my etchings which you so obligingly expressed to Mr. Laing, I should not have thought them worthy of your attention. I am much flattered by what you say of them; and, if they afford you any entertainment, I owe it in return for that which I have received, both in reading your History of Scotland and several other books.

I shall have great pleasure in contributing any curious portraits I may find at Dunrobin, which may come into the class of those you are collecting. I fear there are but few of that description, though I remember formerly hearing of some very old ones, which I never could find out there, and conclude they must have fallen to pieces in some repair of the house many years ago. There is one of Buchanan, of which I shall send you a drawing; or I will bring the original to town for the purpose of being copied this summer, should you wish for a likeness of him. There is also an old Earl of Argyle; but, as I shall soon have an opportunity of seeing what may be worthy of your attention there, I shall delay answering that part of your letter for a few months.

I wish much to see such a translation of Torfæus* as you mention, and hope you may be in

There is no other mention, in Mr. Pinkerton's correspondence, of an intention on his part to translate any of the writings

duced to undertake it with additional notes and observations, which would make it a very valuable acquisition to all who have any curiosity on those subjects. We have at Trentham a portrait, which I believe is that of a young Earl of Mar, whose sister was married to Sir Campbell of Calder: it is by Cornelius Jansen, and used to be called the bonnie Earl of Moray;* but I take it to be Mar, from finding some of the same family at Calder, the father and sisters, I suppose, of this.

of Torfæus, and it is impossible to say which of his works (for he was a voluminous author) is here alluded to; but probably, from the circumstance having been noticed to the Marchioness of Stafford, it was that entitled Orcades, seu rerum Orcadensium Historia. Torfæus, who was a native of Iceland, wrote principally on the History and Antiquities of Denmark.

* James Stewart, who, on his marriage with the eldest daughter of the Regent Moray, assumed the title of Earl of Moray, was generally denominated the bonnie Earl, and seems to have owed to this character the loss of his life. He was much in the good graces of Anne of Denmark, who, a few days before his murder, commended him, in the king's hearing, with too many epithets of a proper and gallant man. His hereditary enemy, the Earl of Huntley, on the 7th February, 1592, on pretence that Moray had been engaged with Bothwell, invested the house of Dunibirsal and set it on fire. Dunbar, sheriff of Moray, who was in the house at the time, said to the Earl of Moray, I will go out at the gate before your lordship, and you shall come out after me.' Dunbar accordingly came forth and ran desperately on Huntley's men, by whom he was presently slain. During this, the Earl of Moray came out, and retreated among the rocks on the sea-side; but unfortunately his knap-scull tippet, whereon was a silk string, had taken fire, which betrayed him to his enemies in the darkness of the night; and, himself not knowing the same, they came down to him on a sudden, and cruelly murdered him. A proclamation was

LORD SEAFORTH TO MR. PINKERTON.

Clarges Street, Feb. 11th, 1808.

Lord Seaforth returns Mr. Pinkerton's queries:he regrets that a particular hurry just now deprives him of leisure to give sufficient attention to digest and arrange any information on the subject Mr. Pinkerton is at present engaged on. Should Lord Seaforth have more time, he will try to recollect any circumstances that may be useful to Mr. Pinkerton, and, in the mean while, should any

issued (18th March) that the young Earl of Moray should not pursue Huntley for the murther, in respect he was warded in Blackness and willing to abide a trial, saying he did nothing but by his Majesty's commission." Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, II. p. 258.

• Francis Humberston Mackenzie, descended from Kenneth, third Earl of Seaforth in Scotland, whose title was forfeited in 1715, was created a British peer, by the title of Lord Seaforth, Baron Mackenzie of Kintail, in the county of Ross, in 1797, and died in 1814, when the title became extinct. His lordship, who was a general in the army, had, at the time of writing this letter, just returned from the government of Barbadoes, where he had most actively and honorably signalized himself by his efforts for the amelioration of the condition of the negro part of the population. He was the first who procured an act from the legislature of that island, making it death to kill a slave, which, before his time, was only punishable by a fine of 157. currency. He was a man of a singularly active and comprehensive mind, and very much attached to the pursuit of all branches in Natural History, but especially Botany, in which he was very well skilled.

VOL. II.

2 A

further queries occur, Mr. Pinkerton is very come to send them to Lord Seaforth.

wel

Query I.-In what part of Answ. This place is not

the isle of Lewis is Classernesh, where there is a remarkable monument like that of Stonehenge? It does not appear in any map that I have seen.

Q. II.--From Mr. Headrick's pamphlet, it appears that the island of Lewis is chiefly granite. Of what color and grain is the granite in general?

Q. III.-Are the isles of the North and South Uist and Barra granitic or calcareous?

properly Classernesh, but Calernish. There is no good map of Lewis: one is making by Mr. Chapman, at an expense of nearly 3,000l. There is a very good plan of the stones in Martin's Hebrides. There is in the same neighborhood, (at Down Carloway,) one of those remains of antiquity, called in that country" Picts' Houses," very perfect both are in the parish of Carloway, which is now annexed to the parish of Lorks.

A. The granite of Lewis is not of vast variety of color and grain: chiefly black and red in color, and of fine grain: in many places mixed with much mica and with quartz, feldspar, &c. in abundance, and in some places much shorl : many dikes intersect it; and there is abundance of bog ore of iron in the mosses.

A. I am not acquainted with these islands; but, from what I hear, they are chiefly similar to Lewis and Harris. In North Uist there is a large tract of sea-sand, so totally devoid of any thing calcareous, that it is thought highly valuable to the glasseries.