OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur's Seat 304
in places where the sandstone has been quarried
(as the craigs were for years to pave the streets of
London), beautiful specimens have been obtained of
radiated haematites, intermixed with steatites, green
fibrous iron ore, and calcareous spar, a most uncommon
mixture.
the glacier are to be found all over these craigs and
Arthur's Seat, and on various parts are found rounded
' boulders, some of which have been worked backwards
and forwards till left at last, stranded by the
farewell ebb of an ancient sea.
The rocky cone of Arthur's Seat is strongly mag-
PLAN OF ARTHUR'S SEAT (THE SANCTUARY OF HOLYROOD).
veins of calcareous spar, talc, zoolite, and amethystine
quartzose crystals; and strange to say several
large blocks of the same greenstone of which they .
are composed are to be found on Arthur's Seat, at
elevations of from eighty to 200 feet above the
craigs.
In ascending the steep path which leads from
Holyrood to the top of the latter, we pass over
layers of sandstone which show ripple marks-the
work of the ice-of unknown ages, grinding and
depositing pebbles, coarse sand, and sedimentary
rock. The bluffs above the path must have had
many a hard struggle, when glaciers crashed against
tion of men of science to this circumstance in 183 I,
when he stated that at some points he found the
needle completely reversed. (Edn. PhiZ. Juurnal,
No. XXII.)
Concerning the origin of the name of this remarkable
mountain, and that of the adjacent craigs,
there have been many theories. Arthur is a name
of-frequent occurrence in Scottish, as well as Welsh
and English topography, and is generally traced by
tradition to the famous Arthur of romance, and
who figures so much in half-fabulous history. From
this prince, who is said to have reigned over Strathclyde
from 508 to 542, when he was shin at the
Arthur?s Seat.] . ORIGIN OF
battle of Camelon, unsupported tradition has always
alleged that Arthur?s Seat obtained its name ; while
with equal veracity the craigs are said to have
been so entitled from the Earl of Salisbury, who
accompanied Edward 111. in one of his invasions
of Scotland, an idle story told by h o t , and ofter,
repeated since.
Maitland, a much more acute writer, says, ?(that
the idea of the mountain being named from Arthur,
a British or Cimrian king, I cannot give into,? and
305 THE NAME.
?Do thou not thus, brigane, thou sal1 be brynt,
With pik, tar, fire, gunpoldre, and lynt
On Arthuris-Sete, or on a hyar hyll.?
And this is seventy-seven years before the publication
of Camden?s c?Britannia,? in which it is so
named. But this is not the only Arthur?s Seat in
Scotland, as there is one near the top of Loch
Long, and a third near Dunnichen in Forfarshire.
Conceriiing the adjacent craigs, Lord Hailes in a
note to the first volume of his Annals, says of ?? the
THE HOLYROOD DAIKY.* (firm a CarOtypr (5. Dr. Tkmmu Keith.)
[The circular structure in the background to the right waq a temporary Government store.]
adds that he considers (? the appellation of Arthur?s
Seat to be a corruption of the Gaelic Ard-na-Said,
which implies the ? Height of Arrows ; ? than which
nothing can be more probable; for no spot of
ground is fitter for the exercise of archery, either
at butts or rovers, than this; wherefore Ard-na-
Sad, by an easy transition, might well be changed
to Arthur?s Seat.?
Many have asserted the latter to be a name of
yesterday, but it certainly bore it at the date of
WalterKennedy?s poem, his ? flyting,? With Dunbar,
which was published in 1508 :- 1
precipice now called Salisbury Craigs; some of
my readers may wish to be informed of the ongin
of a word so familiar to them. In the Anglo-
Saxon language, saw, sme, means dty, withered,
zcrasfe. The Anglo-Saxon termination of Burgh,
Burh, Barrow, BUY^, Biry, implies a castle, town,
or habitation ; but in a secondary sense only, for it
is admitted that the common original is Beorg a
rock . . . . Hence we may conclude, &m>bury,
Sbisbuv, Salisbury, is the waste or dg hbifafion.
An apt description, when it is remembered that the 1 hills which now pass under the general but corrupted
Dr. J. A. Sidey writes: ?The Holyrood Dairy, which stood at the enhance to St. Aone?s Yard, had no reference to the F?alaoc (from
which it was 19 feet distant) except in =gad to name. It was taken down about 1858. and was kept by R o b McBan, whose sm was afterwards
m e of the ? Keeperr? d the F?ab(as Mr. Andrew Kar tdL me) and Rad the old sign in his porrasion. Mr. K a says the dairy Man@
m the Corpont;on of Path, and was held for charitable purpmq and sold frr the sum of money that wuuld yield the ame amount as the reatal of
the dairy.?
87
