craftsmen. Thus we see in the terraced slopes
illustrations of a mode of agriculture pertaining to
times before all written history, when iron had not
yet been forged to wound the virgin soil.?*
In those days the Leith must have been a broader
and a deeper river than now, otherwise the term
? Inverleith,? as its mouth, had never been given to
the land in the immediate vicinity of Stockbridge.
THE ROMAN ROAD, NEAR PORTOBULLO-THE ?? FISHWIVES? CAUSEWAY.?
(From a Draw+ 6y WaZh H. Palm, R.S.A.)
Other relics of the unwritten ages exist nea
Edinburgh in the shape of battle-stones ; but many
have been removed. In the immediate neigh.
hourhood of the city, close to the huge monolith
named the. Camus Stone, were two very large
conical cairns, named Cat (or Cdh) Stones, until
demolished by irreverent utilitarians, who had
found covetable materials in the rude memorial
stones.
Underneath these cairns were cists containing
human skeletons and various weapons of bronze
and iron. Two of the latter material, spear-heads,
are still preserved at Morton Hall. Within the
grounds of that mansion, about half a mile distant
from where the cairns stood, there still stands an
ancient monolith, and two larger masses that are in
its vicinity are not improbably the relics of a ruined
cromlech. ?? Here, perchance, has been the battleground
of ancient chiefs, contending, it may be,
with some fierce invader, whose intruded arts
startle us with evidences of an antiquity vhich
seems primeval. The locality is peculiarly suited
for the purpose. It is within a few miles of the
sea, and enclosed in an amphitheatre of hills ; it is
the highest ground in the immediate neighbourhood,
and the very spot on which the wamors of
a retreating host might be eFpected to make a
stand ere they finally betook themselves to the
adjacent fastnesses of the Pentland Hills.?
t On the eastern slope of the same hill there was found a singular relic
of a later period, which merits special notice from its peculiar characteristics.
It is a bronze matrix, bearing the device of a turbaued head, with
the legend SOLOMONB AR ISArounAd it Cin H ebrew characten j and
by some it has been supposed U, be a talisman or magical signet.
(?Prehist. Ann. Scat.")
The origin of the name ?Edinburgh? has proved
the subject of much discussion. The prenomen
is a very common one in Scotland, and is always
descriptive of the same kind of site-a doye.
Near Lochearnhead is the shoulder of a hill called
Edin-achip, ?? the slope of the repulse,? having
reference to some encounter with the Romans; and
Edin-ample is said to mean ?the slope of the
retreat.? There are upwards of twenty places
having the same descriptive prefix j and besides the
instances just noted, the following examples may
also be cited :-Edincoillie, a ?? slope in the wood,?
in Morayshire ; Edinmore and Edinbeg, in Bute ;
Edindonach, in Argyllshire ; and Edinglassie, in
Aberdeenshire. Nearly every historian of Edinburgh
has had a theory on the subject. Arnot
suggests that the name is derived from Dunea?in,
?the face of a hill ; I? but this would rather signify
the fort of Edin; and that name it bears in
the register of the Priory of St Andrews, in 1107.
Others are fond of asserting that the name was
given to the town or castle by Edwin, a Saxon
prince of the seventh century, who ?repaired
it;? consequently it must have had some name
before his time, and the present form may be a
species of corruption of it, like that of Dryburgh,
from Durrach-brush, ?the bank of the grove
of oaks.?
Another theory, one greatly favoured by Sir
Walter Scott, is that it was the Dinas Eiddyn (the
slaughter of whose people in the sixth century is
lamented by Aneurin, a bard of the Ottadeni); a
place, however, which. Chalmers supposes to be
elsewhere. The subject is a curious one, and
