fully twenty feet above the level of the present-a phenomenon probably owing to what geologists now acknowledge, under the term of gradually elevating forces, as one of the stated operations of nature.

A short way above Larbert Bridge, near the remains of a Roman bridge across the Carron, is the spot pointed out by tradition as the scene of a conference which took place on the evening of the battle of Falkirk, between Bruce (father of King Robert) and Wallace, standing on different sides of the river. A second conference is said to have taken place at the chapel of Dunipace, near by, and the consequence was the retirement of Bruce from the army of the English monarch. At Dunipace, the banks of the river are extremely romantic. Close beside it are the celebrated Hills of Dunipace-two small eminences, of unequal bulk, which the elder Scottish historians believed to have been thrown up to commemorate a peace between the Romans and Caledonians, and to have received their appellation [q. d. duni pacis, hills of peace] from that circumstance. It is needless to point out the improbability of a name being compounded of Celtic and Latin, or the probability that the word and its supposed etymology suggested the origin which has been assigned to the eminences. Another etymology interprets the word as Duin-na-Bais (Celtic), hills of death. Under the existing circumstances, a stranger can only contemplate them as remains unquestionably traceable to a very early people, but the use or meaning of which it would be vain to conjecture. At the neighbouring village of Denny there are several paper-mills, printfields, and other large works. Several miles farther up the Carron, are the remains of Sir John Graham's Castle, a tower affirmed to have belonged to that hero, and which was dismantled in the fifteenth century. In the eastern part of the county, twelve miles from Falkirk, thirty-five from Edinburgh, and twenty-eight from Glasgow, the ancient royal burgh of Stirling occupies a conspicuous site on a rising ground immediately overlooking the river Forth, being surrounded in all directions by a beautiful tract of level country, which is bounded to the north and west by the Highland hills. The central and original part of the town bears an appearance rather antique than elegant, but there are several good streets and a great profusion of neat villas in the outskirts. The higher ground towards the west is crowned by the far-famed Stirling Castle, and the whole bears a striking resemblance, though somewhat in miniature, to the Old Town and Castle of Edinburgh.

The natural strength of the rock on which the Castle is situated, and its position at the only point of easy land communication between the northern and southern parts of the kingdom, seem to have rendered this place a seat of population from the earliest periods of our history. The time when there was no Stirling Castle is not known in Scottish annals. At the end of the twelfth century, it was one of the four principal fortresses in Scotland. During the wars which Edward I. and Edward II. carried on for the subjugation of Scotland, the importance of Stirling Castle is extremely conspicuous: the first of these monarchs besieged it in person, and with great difficulty reduced it in 1304; and it was to relieve it from the beleaguering arms of Bruce that Edward II. undertook the great expedition which terminated in his defeat at Bannockburn. The town, which rose during those early ages on the neighbouring slope, became a royal burgh in the reign of Alexander I., and for some ages held a conspicuous rank amongst Scottish towns of the same class. From the reign of James I., the Castle contained a palace, which was a favourite residence of the native monarchs; here James V. and James VI. in succession spent the years of their respective minorities-here Lyndsay sported with the one, and Buchanan taught the other. The Castle was besieged by Monk in 1651, and taken; but it held out against the irregular attack of Prince Charles Edward in 1746. This fortress-one of the four stipulated in the Act of Union to be kept in repair-is now virtually a barrack; yet it still contains many objects of historical interest.

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Leaving Falkirk Station, we notice the Forth and Clyde Canal, and pass through an enormous fir plantation, remarking also the branch line of the Caledonian Railway, which joins as we enter

GREENHILL STATION; leaving which, and crossing the Scottish Central Railway, the train passes over a splendid viaduct, and enters CASTLECARY STATION, thirty-two miles from Edinburgh. After passing through a deep cutting of solid granite, we reach

CROY STATION, and near

CAMPSIE JUNCTION STATION, cross the Monklands Railway, a branch of the lines under this designation which traverse the rich mineral district between Airdrie and Bo'ness, in the time of Defoe a first-class sea-port on the Forth.

A branch line leads by Kirkintilloch, Milton, and Lennoxtown, to the village of Campsie. In the appearance of the little village or clachan

of Campsie, nestling under the hills, with a pleasant valley spread out before it, there is something that interests the imagination. Lamberton, the patriotic Bishop of St. Andrews, in the days of Bruce, and Cardinal Beaton, were successively parsons of Campsie.

From Campsie, a remarkably steep and difficult path across the hills, denominated the Crow Road, leads to the parish or village of Fintry, on the Endrick, an active seat of the cotton manufacture. The Loup of Fintry, a cascade of the Endrick, ninety-one feet in height, is a couple of miles above Fintry, and near to Sir John Graham's Castle.

The Campsie Hills, occupying the centre of Stirlingshire, although none of them exceed the height of 1500 feet above the level of the sea, are conspicuous from every part of the county, and from the neighbourhood of Glasgow. Campsie is much resorted to by parties from Glasgow, on account of Campsie Glen, a beautiful woody recess in the hills behind the village, distinguished by a fine waterfall. Leaving Campsie Junction, the train passes through granite cuttings, and arrives at the distance of three miles at BISHOP-BRIGGS STATION, and shortly afterwards at

COWLAIRS STATION, where the passengers' tickets for Glasgow are collected. The train proceeds towards its destination, for about a mile and a half, when it passes through a fine tunnel into the Glasgow Station, situated in George-square, and introduces us to the GREAT CITY.

History. The origin of the name Glasgow is doubtful. Some conjecture that it is compounded of the two Gaelic words, glass, signifying grey," and gow, "a smith;" and infer that some son of Vulcan had the felicity of conferring his own appellative on the infant city. Others trace the name to two ancient British words which might signify" a dark glen;" and conjecture that a deep ravine, a little to the east of the cathedral, gave name to a few cots planted in that neighbourhood, by the earliest settlers, in which this great city had its humble origin. Others again have conjectured that the name originally signified the "Grey hound ferry.” The Romans had a station on the river Clyde at this spot. The wall of Antoninus, extending between the friths of Forth and Clyde, a few miles north of the city, embraced the province of Valentia, in which Glasgow is situated. History tells us little more of this locality till about the year 560, when the see of Glasgow was founded by Kentigern or St. Mungo. About 1115, the see was refounded by David, Prince of Cumberland;

and from this period downwards, the history of Glasgow, civil and ecclesiastical, is generally distinct and authentic. The see of Glasgow was one of the most opulent in the kingdom. Its bishops, and latterly archbishops, were lords of the lordships of the royalty and baronies of Glasgow; and eighteen baronies of land pertained to them in the sheriffdoms of Lanark, Dumbarton, Ayr, Renfrew, Peebles, Selkirk, Roxburgh, Dumfries, and the then stewartry of Annandale, including 240 parishes. Besides, there was a large estate in Cumberland, subject to their jurisdiction, which was termed "the Spiritual Dukedom." In 1450, Bishop Turnbull obtained from James II, a charter, erecting the town and patrimonies of the bishopric into a regality. This spirited prelate also procured a bull from Pope Nicholas V., for the founding of a university, which he endowed. Before this period the town was so contemptible as not to contain more than 1500 inhabitants; but the establishment of the university contributed more than anything which had hitherto been done. to the extension of the city and the general well-being of the inhabitants. When, however, the royal burghs of Scotland were taxed by order of Queen Mary, it appears that Glasgow only rated as the eleventh in point of population and importance. Glasgow was occasionally the seat of the ecclesiastical synods of the church. The most remarkable of all these was that held in 1638, in the reign of Charles I., in which the Presbyterian party overturned the Episcopal system of the king, and asserted the perfect independence of "the kirk." To use the words of the historian Hume, "Episcopacy, the high commission, the articles of Perth, the canons, and the liturgy were abolished, and declared unlawful; and the whole fabric which James and Charles, in a long course of years, had been rearing with so much care and policy, fell at once to the ground." On the 3rd September, 1650, Cromwell defeated the Scotch army at Dunbar; and in the course of the winter the Protector visited Glasgow. His stay in Scotland was in the main extremely beneficial to the country, and to Glasgow in particular. Great part of his troops consisted of tradesmen, who had been spirited away from their peaceful callings by the frenzy and enthusiasm of the times: a number of these settled in Glasgow, and contributed to foster the spirit of trade, and bring the arts to a degree of perfection to which the citizens had been strangers. On 17th of June, 1652, a conflagration broke out in Glasgow by which the greater part of Saltmarket, Trongate, and High-street was destroyed. The loss was com

puted at £100,000,-no inconsiderable sum in those days; but, like London in a similar affliction, Glasgow rose purified and beautified from her ashes. The majority of the houses had hitherto been built or faced with wood, but these now gave place to substantial stone erections. Subsequently, in 1677, another great conflagration took place, when 130 houses were burned. Charles II. followed up the wretched policy of his father in his efforts to force Episcopacy upon a reclaiming people; and as Glasgow was the head-quarters of "the Covenanters " of the West, it shared in all the pains and persecutions of that iron time. To aid their proceedings, the Council brought down upon the Lowlands an army of nearly 10,000 Highlanders, known afterwards by the name of " the Highland host," who seared the face of the country like a cloud of locusts, and after a stay departed from Glasgow loaded with plunder. The Act of Union of 1707 was so bitterly opposed by the citizens of Glasgow, that the magistrates found it necessary to order that not more than three persons should assemble together in the streets after sunset. But only a very short period elapsed before the citizens saw the advantages which had been conferred upon them by the opening of the American trade, which they embraced with a degree of ardour which justifies us in regarding this as the epoch from which must be dated the rise of Glasgow as the great seat of commerce and manufactures in Scotland. In the course of the long war which broke out during the first French revolution, and was terminated by the overthrow of Napoleon in 1815, Glasgow evinced an exuberant degree of loyalty, in the number of its corps of royal volunteers. In 1819-20, the peace of the city was endangered from the feeling of discontent which pervaded the minds of large masses of the working classes, who in many cases had arrayed and armed themselves with the intention of openly resisting the Government. Since then, the history of the city is happily unmarked by warlike preparations, or disaster, if we except the visitations of cholera, in 1832 and 1848-9; and the brief outburst of a thoughtless rabble, in 1848. Its annals, however, are not the less interesting that they belong to the piping times of peace; for they mark the almost railroad speed with which the capital of the West has progressed in population, in intelligence, and in commercial and manufacturing wealth.

General appearance.-Unlike Edinburgh, and many other towns in the kingdom, Glasgow appears very disadvantageously from a distance.