CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 573. OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1874. PRICE 1d. DUKE OF SUTHERLAND'S IMPROVEMENT S. A LARGE portion of the energy and enterprise that distinguished his illustrious relative, the great Duke of Bridgewater, seems to have been inherited by the present Duke of Sutherland. During the thirteen years that have elapsed since he acquired possession of the property, the county of Sutherland has been well-nigh revolutionised, and a great many works are in progress which may have a most important effect upon the future well-being of the people. We may enumerate some of the works in which the Duke has in late years engaged: Railways in the Highlands at a cost of upwards of three hundred thousand pounds. Opening lime-quarries, and building lime-kilns at Lairg and Erribol. Placing a steam-barge on Loch Shin for goods-traffic. Reopening and working coalmines at Brora. Erecting a large brick-work and manufactory of tiles, draining-pipes, fire-bricks, &c. Reclamation of land on a very large scale at various places, especially at Lairg, by means of steam-ploughs of novel construction and remarkable power. Introducing road-locomotives and portable thrashingmachines. Providing steam-ploughs for hire. Laying oyster-beds. Breeding salmon on a large scale, and trying the effect of introducing the breed of such rivers as the Tweed, the Tay, and the Thurso, into the small rivers of Sutherland. Gas-making from peat and testing the value of peat as fuel for domestic purposes, for engines, lime-burning, &c. Experiments for improving the quality and durability of home-grown timber. Trying the effects of pure-water irrigation on lawn and mountain grasses. Extensive planting. Division of shootings and building lodges, with a view to increasing the number of resident shooting tenants. Erection of saw-mills and steam-carpentry works capable of turning out every kind of wood-work necessary for building houses, &c. Workshops for repairing steam-ploughs and machinery of every kind. All this, it must be remembered, is irrespective of the ordinary management of an immense territory, the organisation of a body of Volunteers, which embraces the whole strength of the county, and the maintenance of a splendid hospitality, not confined to the Duke's palatial residence at Dunrobin, but carried on at Stafford House, Trentham, and Lilleshall, where industrial works of scarcely less magnitude than those in Sutherland, have His Grace's constant attention and supervision. That supervision is not a fiction: early and late His Grace is on the move as other people order their carriage round at a certain hour, the Duke bespeaks his private engine at the Dunrobin station, and he likes to drive it himself. Improvements in Sutherland are not all of recent date. Much had already been done by the late Duke and his predecessor. Roads were made; farms adjusted and let on lease; good dwellinghouses and farm-steadings had been erected where required; the old castle of Dunrobin, the family seat for many centuries, had been converted into a palace worthy of royalty; and the county was in a settled, prosperous, and easy-going condition, but cut off from the world, inasmuch as it lacked railway communication. This desideratum has now been supplied. A line of the ordinary four feet eight and a half inch gauge penetrates the county, and communicates with the two principal towns of Caithness, so that carriages can be sent literally from the Pentland Firth to the British Channel without interruption. The construction of part of the line-Golspie to Helmsdale-was undertaken in a great measure for the relief of the people of Sutherland, who had had two or three bad fishing seasons, and were in distress. Without waiting for an act of parliament, or calling for contracts, the Duke broke ground at Golspie for a continuation of the Highland Railway, and at once offered employment to the people of the district. He was his own contractor, bought his own ballasttrucks, the timber for the sleepers came from his own estate, was sawn at his own saw-mills, and the stone for the bridges came from his own quarries. The men were paid by weekly wages; and when the work was done, and seventeen miles of railway constructed on this principle, the Duke had the satisfaction of knowing that he had not only helped the people at a pinch, but had made the very cheapest railway that has yet been opened in the kingdom. To complete the notice of this peculiar piece of work, the government inspector said it was as good a railway as could be constructed; and when the Duke opened it for traffic, he drove the engine himself, and on the foot-plate with him were the Prince and Princess Christian, and the Duchess of Sutherland. compressed the compound into the shape of bricks. He took common peats from the moor, and, by an ingenious process, forced boiling pitch into every pore of the mould, so that it must burn. And so it did. All the experiments suited very well, they were quite successful; but they could not supersede materials in common use. His Grace is now engaged in one more experiment. Near Forsinard, in the heart of the peat-moss, he has constructed machinery for converting peat into carbon. The process is inexpensive, and is perfectly successful. The consistency of the carbon, its great value for manufacturing purposes, and for the production of gas, cannot be gainsaid, and it costs only about 15s. per ton; but, unfortunately, it costs L.2, 10s. per ton to carry it to places where it would be useful. As far as Helmsdale, the construction of the line was easy. Between the mountains and the sea lies a belt of flat land, for the most part of sharp good soil, that bears fine crops of barley and potatoes, and yields as excellent early grass as any in the north. This is the only part of the county in which there is any population to speak of, and the The completion of the railway to Helmsdale, railway thereafter passes through a tract of land and the high price to which coal was rising such as it is hard to associate with the idea of shortly after that event, directed attention to a travelling in the Highlands of Scotland. There coal-field which was well known to exist in the are miles and miles of the most dreary moorland, immediate neighbourhood of the village of Brora as flat as the palm of the hand; not a tree or a The seam crops out upon the sea-shore, and after bush is to be seen, not even the fragrant bog- a heavy north-easterly gale, the fisher-people myrtle; but there are multitudes of shallow lakes, used to gather basketsful of coal at low-tide for which hold splendid trout and give good angling. use at home. About seventy years ago, a shaft Peaty water and good fish seem incompatible, but was sunk; the mineral was easily found, but the may be reconciled by the fact, that where the quality was inferior, and good coal was then cheap. railway here and there cuts deeper than the growth For local consumption, it had to compete with of peat, the soil on which it rests appears to be of that same peat of which we have been speaking, a marly clay, and where there is plenty of marl in which was really valuable when labour was at a water, the fish generally are pink like salmon. discount. After much expense had been incurred, The termini at Wick and Thurso are both places the mine fell into the hands of an insolvent conof interest in their way-the former, the great tractor, who fled from the country. It was abancentre of the herring-fishing; and the latter, a well-doned; and operations for emptying the shaft of built, genteel, county capital, at the mouth of one of the finest salmon rivers in the world, and within easy reach of firm yellow sands by the seashore, such as are in themselves an inducement to sea-bathing. In the Highland Railway, the Duke holds L.100,000 of stock: the line from Bonar Bridge to Golspie cost him L.116,000; from Golspie to Helmsdale, L.60,000; and his contribution to the Sutherland and Caithness Railway was L.60,000: in all, L.301,000. The Highland Railway system now extends to 410 miles. If peat is ever to be converted into an article of commercial value, the vast deposits around Forsinard-one of the stations on the Sutherland and Caithness line-should count for much. Not only is the extent enormous, but the quality is goodfor peat, it seems, differs almost as much as soil in its capacity for growth, and its usefulness as fuel. It grows like a sponge in some places, so loose, wet, and porous as to be almost worthless; at Forsinard, and generally on the confines of Caithness and Sutherland, it is of close, firm texture, very black in colour, and taking a long time to grow. Many expensive experiments have been made to utilise this abundant growth, but there has always been some hitch. Sir James Matheson made splendid paraffine candles from it, but it was no sooner at the paying-point than some invention was made by which the Lews candles were undersold in the market; a large manufactory has sprung up at Arisaig, in the West Highlands, but its success has yet to be tried. The Duke of Sutherland has experimented upon peat in a hundred ways: he tried to work it up with sawdust and coal-tar into fuel for engines, mixed it with coal-dust, the débris of the collieries, and the accumulated rain-water of forty years were only begun late in 1872. The mine is now in workingorder; it is by no means an extensive one, and the product is only twenty-five tons to thirty tons a day; but as many as fifty tons have been raised in a day; and the supply could be increased if the demand were greater. It is good serviceable fuel, and the quality is steadily improving, the further the mine is worked. Some bituminous shale has been discovered, and is now used at the gas-works at Thurso. From two hundred and fifty tons to three hundred tons of coal per month are consumed by the Duke at his various works throughout the county, and at Dunrobin, where it is in daily use. Tramways lead from the mouth of the pit to the Brora Railway Station, and to the harbour, which is capable of accommodating vessels of light draught. At Brora, has been discovered a magnificent bank of brick-clay, and on the shore an endless supply of excellent fire-clay. Both these kinds of clay have been utilised. A very perfect brick-work is now in operation. All that is competent to the material is here turned out, apparently of the best quality and make, under the superintendence of skilled workmen from England. The shedding covers a fifth of an acre, and can protect a hundred thousand bricks; about seven thousand a day can be turned out easily; but tile-pipes, chimney-cans, roofing-tiles, wall-coping, &c., which are comparatively more in demand than the bricks themselves, take more time for production. The fire-clay mannfacture is of importance in the Highlands, as there is no other work of the kind; and Brora manufactured goods have proved in analysis very nearly equal to those of Stourbridge. So many works are DUKE OF SUTHERLAND'S IMPROVEMENTS. in hand, so many new houses and cottages are in course of erection, that it has been thought worth while to start a steam carpentry establishment. A cargo of timber can be imported straight from Norway, which is nearer Brora than London. A few minutes suffice to run it to the saw-mill, and the appliances there are so perfect that it can be turned out in the form of doors and window-sashes all complete. The building is entirely of brick, the first of the kind ever erected in the county: it is 130 feet long by 30 feet wide, is brilliantly lighted, and well ventilated. Adjoining it is a similar building devoted to the repairing of machinery of all kinds, together with store-rooms, offices, &c. These are not yet in working order, but when completed, they will give employment to a great many people, and prove of much value in the industrial education of the Highlands. All these works are making the little village of Brora a place of considerable importance. The river, an excellent salmon stream, runs through the centre, but the banks are high on both sides, and very rocky. A little planting on the slopes above would vastly improve the appearance of the place; and with its fine sandy beach, Brora might easily be made an attractive place of residence. The operations described above may be said to spring naturally one from the other; but the works which have attracted most attention in Sutherland, which were visited by a large number of the members of the Highland Society at the last show at Inverness, are the operations for reclaiming land in the neighbourhood of Lairg. There is probably no county in Scotland in which there is so much uncultivated land as in Sutherland. Except the border, on the sea-shore, of which we spoke above, hardly ten miles deep at any point, and a few isolated patches of land here and there, the whole county may be said to be given up to black-cattle, sheep, and deer, which is nearly equivalent to saying that it is in a state of nature. As this state of things is detrimental to the climate, the reclamation of land on an extensive scale becomes of first importance. The spot selected for the principal experiment in bringing land into cultivation, lies beside Loch Shin, a few miles inland from the railway station at Lairg. It is a fine Highland district, with long low mountains and broad valleys, very little wooded, and not at all rocky. Loch Shin is a noble sheet of water, twenty miles long, and celebrated for its Salmo ferox. The day will probably come when a sufficient ladder will be made for salmon at the falls on the river Shin, in which case salmon-fishing would be added to the attractions of the district. A good road runs from Lairg to the west coast, passing a series of lakes, which are connected one with the other, until they find an outlet in the sea at Laxford. The land rises by a gentle slope from the shores of Loch Shin to a low ridge, then falls into a broad flat valley, stretching away to the foot of the distant mountains: the river Tirry flows through it to Loch Shin, and on every hand there are miles and miles of apparently good soil only waiting to be tilled. The severity of the climate has always hitherto been objected against reclamation, but after all, the level of Loch Shin is little more than two hundred feet above the sea. The Duke has already planted extensively, and has made arrangements for doing so on a large scale. The climate cannot be much worse than places immedi 803 ately north and south of it, and the result of last year's work is encouraging. On the first farm, Collabol, excellent crops of oats and turnips have been gathered this autumn, as good as can be found in the country, and the soil was not better than the greater part of what is now in course of reclamation. It is intended to take in about a thousand acres per annum, and the estimated cost, including drainage, farm-buildings, roads, &c., is about twenty-five pounds per acre. The second farm, cleared is Auchan-arran (the field of bread), the old name for the place. It is intended to contain six fields of fifty acres each. Others in process of reclamation will consist of one of two hundred and fifty or three hundred acres, one of two hundred acres, one of one hundred and twenty-five acres, with fourteen hundred acres of pasture divided among them. There will also be fourteen farms of forty acres each, with six hundred acres of outrun in common. About two hundred acres are to be given to tenants for improvement. His Grace intends to make the farms quite complete before letting them, taking the first crop himself, and then letting them on an improving lease. Twenty-five pounds spent in reclaiming a single acre of land! The outlay seems enormous; yet, to our knowledge, even larger sums are expended by proprietors in Scotland in reclaiming waste parts of their estate. Some years ago, a proprietor transformed a wild peat-moss into excellent arable land, at a cost of thirty pounds per acre, on which outlay there has been already a return of five per cent. per annum, besides a considerable melioration of climate. This shews what can be done to advantage where a spirit of enterprise is united with capital. From what is now so energetically going on through the outlay of a princely revenue in Sutherland, the climate of that part of Great Britain cannot fail to be prodigiously improved. For this alone, the Duke merits a grateful acknowledgment. A word or two about the mode of working. Nearly everything is done by means of steamengines, which can traverse the country in pairs to wherever they may be required, and which are so constructed that they are in a great measure independent of roads. They take up their place at a distance of about four hundred yards from one another, and are connected by means of steel ropes of immense strength, one attached to each engine, and wound upon a drum. If there should be a few trees in the way, a chain is thrown round them; one of the wires is attached, the engine winds up, and away go the trees, roots and all, in a twinkling. Is this process of felling timber likely to supersede the axe? Fir trees, larch, and spruce, send down no tap-root into the earth; and if a steam-engine furnished with steel-wire ropes can pull down one tree, it might uproot five hundred in a day. The plough used for cutting up the land at Lairg is attached to the wire-ropes of both engines-one uncoiled to the full, and the other wound up. The former begins to wind up, and drags the plough along, pulling out with it the wire coiled upon the second engine. At the other side of the field, the process is reversed, and so the plough is dragged back and fore from end to end, until the day's work is done. The plough is a most ingenious contrivance, perfected literally on the field, as the wants and necessities of the case revealed themselves. At first, no tackle could stand the sudden jerk caused by running tilt against a boulder or a big root in the ground. To remedy this, side-wheels were put on, which lifted the plough over impediments, and men came behind with pick-axes to remove the difficulty. This was unsatisfactory, for much time was lost. It was the Duke himself who suggested a remedy-namely, the attachment of a trailing hook following the plough, and penetrating much deeper into the soil. This great hook grapples with stones that it would give immense trouble to hand-labour to loosen from the earth, and turn up on the surface. When even this cannot dispossess the obstruction, a cast of strong chain is thrown round it, and attached to the pulling-wire. It must then yield, whatever may be its weight, if the strain be such as the steel wire can bear. But the trail-hook does much more than pull out stones and roots in the work of reclamation; it thoroughly disturbs, without displacing, a considerable depth of subsoil, while the plough proper only turns over the good earth, and when the seed is sown, it finds loose soil below, from which to derive air and sustenance. Another important invention was made on the field, by, we believe, Mr Henry Wright, the Duke's private Secretary. All along, great difficulty had been experienced in steering the plough straight. Mr Wright suggested a revolving disc, by means of which it could be guided as one guides a bicycle, with two very clear advantages: the disc would cut through the turf like a knife in front of the coulter of the plough; and where an obstacle occurred which was too much for either the disc or the plough, it would rise up, and pass over it, helping the plough at the same time to do so likewise, and leave the difficulty to be dealt with by the trail-hook. When the field has been thoroughly ploughed from end to end, the engines are applied to the task of clearing it of stones. This is also done by means of the two coils of steel rope. Instead of the plough, a cradle is attached, capable of holding four or five tons of stones. When it is filled, one engine drags it to the end of the field, and with it the wire-rope of the other engine, which then begins to pull, and, tilting the cradle, drags it back to where a fresh load of stones has been accumulated. Many other ingenious contrivances have been applied here to the saving of labour. About two hundred and fifty men are employed, at wages of 2s. 6d. to 3s. 2d. a day; many skilled artisans receiving much more. At the coal-fields, most of the workmen are natives of the district, and obtain higher wages than have ever been paid in Sutherland. It will be seen from these few notes how large a field of usefulness the Duke of Sutherland has opened for himself, and what great changes the county is undergoing. It is often a question, whether it is well for the nation that vast fortunes should be vested in the hands of individuals; but without enormous means, it would be impossible for the Duke of Sutherland to embark in works of improvement such as we have described, without embarrassing his estate, and possibly cutting off the means of usefulness of his successors. Whether they all yield a profitable return, is happily not a matter of serious concern to His Grace; but in the meantime, he has the satisfaction of creating new industries in Sutherland, familiarity with which must influence the fortunes of hundreds of his people. He increases the resources of the county in many ways, gives wholesome employment to numerous workmen and their families, and all this by using the means placed by Providence in his hands for purposes which also serve to indulge his own hearty love of doing good. There is apparently good cause for repeating the words of an old traveller: May that family continue and prosper!' was the pious wish of Pennant, speaking of the Earls of Sutherland, when he narrated his famous Tour in the Highlands, just a hundred years ago. THE BLOSSOMING OF AN ALOE. CHAPTER XXXIII.-MARY'S RESOLUTION. among those which awaited her. WHEN Miss Cairnes came down on the following morning, she found a letter from Mrs Westland without interest or misgiving, her mind entirely She opened it absorbed in the occurrences of the previous night; and she read, hardly understanding them at first, the following lines: It is impossible for me to address you with any of the customary forms of politeness or affection. You have taken an unfair advantage of the position in which my unfortunate circumstances have placed me, to enable my son to violate, with your connivance, all the principles I have ever striven to inculcate in him. Your careful concealment from me of the extraordinary step you have taken in bringing into your house the daughter of a common station-master, and of a former dependent of your own, and treating her as an equal, proves that you knew it was one which society would condemn. I am not, however, surprised at that; you have accustomed me to see you despise the opinions of society, and you are never communicative towards me. But the fact which you concealed from me has reached me through the medium of my maid's correspondence with your maid; with the dreadful addition, that Cyril, having met this young person-who is probably as designing as she must be vulgar-at Bromley Park, and accompanied you and her to the Tors, is quite openly paying her attentions, which she is receiving in your presence, and with your encouragement. I never was so shocked in my life as by this intelligence. I should have written to Cyril by this post, and put his conduct before him in its true light, but that I had more consideration for you than you have had for me, and hesitated to point out to him how far, by ever permitting him to meet a person of this kind in your company, you have departed from propriety and self-respect. Conceive my feelings when I discovered that your servants actually think it likely 'there will soon be a wedding at the Tors,' and that 'Miss Cairnes had done finely for her young friend and Mr Cyril.' Of course, you are prepared by the foregoing for the request, indeed, I am entitled to say the demand, which I am about to make-that you will undo as far as possible the mischief which your violation of the decent and proper laws of society has done, by at once dismissing this young person. I have, unhappily, no power to control Cyril's movements, and cannot, therefore, snatch him from the danger; but I can, and do, require you to remove from him the temptation for which you are accountable. I am really too much agitated to write more at present; but I expect to hear from you that my just demand has been complied with; and I don't THE BLOSSOMING OF AN ALOE. think, however far you may carry your own eccentric views, you will extend them to encouraging my son in setting his mother at defiance, and in taking a step which those only who know the world-of which you have chosen to remain ignorant-can estimate the ruinous nature. C. WESTLAND. Anne Cairnes was reading the last words of her aunt's astounding letter, when Mary came into the room, and advanced to her with her usual morning greeting and kiss. Mary noted the flush of anger on Anne's cheek as plainly as Anne saw Mary's pale face and dimmed eyes; but there was a servant in the room, and not a word was said, beyond the ordinary phrases which accompanied their several attempts at eating their breakfast, until they were alone. Then Anne took Mary to her morning-room, and bade her tell her what was grieving her. The letter she had read with such profound disgust had helped Anne's perceptions, and she waited for the girl's explanation with a heavy heart. Mary made a convulsive effort to speak; no words came. Anne laid her hand on Mary's arm, and said very quietly: 'It is something about Cyril. Cyril loves you, and he told you so last night.' 'Oh, Miss Cairnes, how-how did you know it?' cried the girl, gliding suddenly from her seat, and kneeling beside Anne, with her face hidden in her hands. Anne drew her close to her with one arm, and answered: 'Never mind that. Tell me, my child, what you told him. Tell me what you said to him, that sent him off, not like a happy lover, but wildly, like a man who has had a blow. Tell me what you said to Cyril, when he asked you if you loved him.' 'I told him-I told him that I did. But oh, Miss Cairnes'-here Mary took her hands away from her face, and met Anne's gaze steadily-'I told him I had not known it until then, until a few minutes before he asked me the question. I told him I could never, never cease to love him -and that is true indeed. I hope you will not blame me too much for it, but I must love him all my life-though I shall never see him any more, perhaps.' 'What do you mean, Mary? Why should you never see him more ?' 'Because it will be better for him; because he will leave off thinking of me, and fretting about me sooner, if there is no chance, no danger of our meeting ever again. But I did not tell him this; I kept this to tell to you, when I should be able, and could ask you to help me. I only said to him that I never could be his wife; and then he grew very angry with me, and said I had tempted and trifled with him, to make him wretched, and his life worthless to him. It was only a few minutes, but it seemed like years; and I don't know where I got the words, and the strength to say them.' 'I don't understand you,' said Anne, raising Mary from her knees. 'Sit here beside me; calm yourself, and let me know your meaning. Is it that Cyril has asked you to become his wife, and you, acknowledging that you love him, have refused him?' "That is my meaning. I have refused him.' 'In Heaven's name, why?' For your sake, for that of my dead mother, and of my duty! Oh, Miss Cairnes, I am only a girl, and I know very little, but I do know 805 what I owe to you; I do know what Mr Westland is to you, and what his place in the world is. Miss Thorpe taught me how these things were, and how I must regard myself with respect to every one but you. To you, I could be what you chose to make me, but to every one else I am what I seem; only a poor girl, the child of humble parents, owing everything to your bounty; never by any possibility to be your equal. I knew it all, but I did not know how soon I might need to apply the knowledge; and there was no one, there was nothing to remind me of it here, but my own heart. But when he said those words to me last night, I knew the time had come, and that it was over. Not over, that I should still owe everything to you; but over, that I should not remember the truth about myself. And so, and so'-here Mary's momentary calmness forsook her, and she wrung her hands wildly—‘I said good-bye to him last night; and you must help me to make it good-bye in earnest.' (And this is the girl his mother pronounces, without seeing her, to be doubtless as designing as she is vulgar'-this thought came to Anne, amid a multitude of other thoughts, as she listened.) 'Then it was for his sake, and mine, that you refused Cyril? There was no motive for it, but your sense of duty to him and to me; no doubt about your own feelings? You are quite sure that you would like to be his wife, Mary, that you love him well enough to give all your life to him?' 'I am quite sure,' replied Mary, in a slow, low voice, that I love him well enough to do what I have done, for his sake, and yours. Please, don't say any more to me about that.' She spoke with clearness and decision that might have become a woman twice her age. Anne wondered at the strength of character she had never before detected, because she had never looked for it. She had taken Mary's submission for general gentleness hitherto; here she was shewing all those qualities which are supposed to be peculiar to the 'thoroughbred,' by shallow thinkers, from whom we accept definitions that are frequently merely jargon. 'Very well, I won't. Now tell me, my dear, what it is you wish me to do. Suppose I accept all you have said, and what you have done; suppose I tell you, fully acknowledging my own want of foresight and of observation' (how keenly Anne felt, as she spoke, that she had been absorbed in her own feelings, while this drama of young love was being acted before her unheeding eyes), that no such probability as an attachment springing up between you and Cyril ever occurred to me, when I took you home; that, according to the judgment of the world, Cyril would be imprudent to marry you, and that you have behaved very well, fully done your duty by refusing him, and resolving to part with him-what do you wish me to do?' 'I wish you to send me away.' 'Only to avoid him, Mary? It is his place to avoid you; he is only to remain another week here, you know, at all events. I had better send him away, I think.' 'No,' replied Mary, with the same decision of tone; 'I don't mean this for a few days only. I mean that you must send me away, to lead my own life, the life my mother destined, and you have fitted me for. This is a false position, and I see |