THE

HISTORY OF DUNBAR.

PART III.

CIVIL AND DOMESTIC.

CHAPTER I.

The Parish.-Agriculture.-Population.

THE town of Dunbar is situated at the mouth of the frith of Forth, in the county of East Lothian, and sheriffdom of Haddington, twenty-eight miles east from Edinburgh; in latitude nearly 56° north, and longitude 2o 30' west from Greenwich. The parish, which takes its name from the town, is rather more than eight miles long, and in some places three miles broad! It is separated from Innerwick parish by Dryburnwater on the south; it is bounded by the frith of Forth and Tyningham parish on the north; by the German ocean on the east; and by the parishes of Spot, Stenton, and Prestonkirk, on the west. A considerable portion of land, called Dunbar Outer Common, lies about five miles from the town, and is surrounded by the parishes of Innerwick, Whittingham, and Stenton. It is situated on the skirts of Lammer

moor, and is four miles long, and in some places three, and in general two and a-half miles broad. The marches are perambulated yearly by the magistrates and council, which occasions a scene of much merriment to the lieges.

Fanned by the undulating breezes of the Forth, the situation of Dunbar in summer is healthy and pleasant; in winter, when the north-eastern blast, wrought up into the flickering mazes of the storm, desolates its rocky shores, it is chill and gloomy. The face of the country rises gradually from the sea, interspersed with green hill and gentle dale, till it is lost in the Lammermoors. Its shores are rugged and picturesque; the most striking objects seen at a little distance being the Bass and the Isle of May, while many a little isolated rock, situated immediately upon the beach, such as the Pin-cod, Delves, &c. appear once to have formed a junction with the mainland. Eastward, at the extremity of this rocky and lofty coast, the eye reposes on the blue promontory of St Abb's Head, where the Princess Ebba once had her solitary house of prayer; southward we behold the pastoral Lammermoors and the high grounds of Whittingham; and, in the west, Traprene-law, the Garleton-hills, and North Berwick-law, close a beautiful amphitheatre; while beyond it are seen the sha dowy outlines of the Pentland hills, the shores of Fife, and the mountains of Angus.

A little eastward from Dunbar, immediately on the beach, we meet with a considerable extent of low rocky ledges, generally of the red sandstone forma,

tion, dipping so gently in some places, in their angle of inclination, as to appear almost horizontal; farther on, however, they assume a more vertical shape, till at length the strata shoot up into almost perpendicular peaks, after which they are lost, and succeeded by what Professor Jameson calls, "a bed of porphyritic basaltic greenstone," which runs a considerable way into the sea. Beyond this, the red sandstone ceases to be visible, but beds of limestone now begin to make their appearance in the greyish-white sandstone to which the former has given place.*

The isle, or rock, upon which Dunbar Battery is built, is situated between the harbour and castle, and consists of basaltic columns, or a stratum of stone, resembling the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. Mr Pennant describes it as consisting of "red grit stone, either triangular or hexangular; their diameter from one to two feet; their length at low water thirty, dipping or declining a little to the south; they are jointed, but not regularly or so plainly as those which form the Giant's Causeway; the surface of several that had been torn off, appears as a pavement of numbers of convex ends, probably answering to the concave bot toms of other joints incumbent on them. The space between the columns are filled with the septa of red and white sparry matter, the veins of the same per

* For an account of the geological structure, and other highly interesting peculiarities and natural appearances of this part of the coast and neighbourhood, the reader is referred to "Popular Philosophy;" a work recently published by a native of the place, and to be had of the publisher of this volume.