the time, to be used as mere quarries of ready stones for the building
of villages and houses, and for the construction of field-dikes and
drains. In the perpetration of this class of sad and discreditable
desecrations, many parties are to blame. Such outrages have been
practised by both landlord and tenant, by both State and Church; and I
fear that the Presbyterian Church of Scotland is by no means free from
much culpability in the matter. But let us, at the same time, rejoice
that a better spirit is awakened on the whole question; and let us hope
that our Scottish landlords will all speedily come to imitate, when
required, the excellent example of Mr. Baillie, who, when some years ago
he found that one of his tenants had pulled down and carried off, for
building purposes, some portions of the walls of the four grand old
burgs standing in Glenelg, in Inverness-shire, prosecuted the delinquent
farmer before the sheriff-court of the county, and forced him to restore
and replace _in situ_, as far as possible, and at his own expense, all
the stones which he had removed.

Almost all the primaeval stone circles and cromlechs which existed in the
middle and southern districts of Scotland have been cast down and
removed. The only two cromlechs in the Lothians, the stones of which
have not been removed, are at Ratho and Kipps; and though the stones
have been wantonly pulled down, they could readily be restored, and
certainly deserve to be so. In 1813 the cromlech at Kipps was seen by
Sir John Dalzell still standing upright. In describing it, in the
beginning of the last century, Sir Robert Sibbald states that near this
Kipps cromlech was a circle of stones, with a large stone or two in the
middle; and he adds, "many such may be seen all over the country." They
have all disappeared; and latterly the stones of the Kipps circle have
been themselves removed and broken up, to build, apparently, some
neighbouring field-walls, though there was abundance of stones in the
vicinity equally well suited for the purpose.

Among the most valuable of our ancient Scottish monuments are certainly
our Sculptured Stones. Most of them, however, and some even in late
times, have been sadly mutilated and destroyed, to a greater or less
degree, by human hands, and converted to the most base uses. The stone
at Hilton of Cadboll, remarkable for its elaborate sculpture and
ornamental tracery, has had one of its sides smoothed and obliterated in
order