OS1/21/18/82

Continued entries/extra info

Gold Scours continued:-

"gold at Long Cleuch as would have maintained three times as many men as he kept royally. From Short Cleuch he removed up the great hill to Long Cleuch Head, to seek gold in solid places; where of he discovered a small spring, but there he wanted a water course to help him. Thus vein had the Sappar stone plentifully in it, which sometimes held natural gold, but the salmoneer stones at Long Cleuch Head held much silver, and may prove a ... mine if followed by such as know the nature of minerals. It is said that vein was po...ed with gold, called small powdered gold. It was a vein and not a bed. The removed from Short Cleuch trial to Long Cleuch Head because the workmen found two pieces of gold there within two feet of the Moss. The one was reported to weight 6 ounces and the other better than five, which was thought to descend from the gold bed. At Long Cleuch head as I heard it reported and saw a piece of the same, was found a piece of brown spar, somewhat like sugar candy, which after it was broken , had in it an ounce of pure gold, which spar as I suppose is called the sappar stone in foreign nations. This brown spar weighed two pounds troy. At Long Cleuch Head Mr. Bulmer made a stamping mill, called abroad , anacanago. Such are used in the West Indies, and in Cornwall, where it is sometimes called a plash mill to dress tin out of stones, in which the eye can discern little or nothing. By the same means Mr. Bulmer used to get much small meally gold at Long Cleuch." (P.148.149). Secretary Davidson's account of the coinage seems to be correct, for a large gold coinage did take place in the reigns of James IV. and James V., but of Mary's reign there was only a coinage of the early year. These coins were popularly known as bonnet pieces, and were always reported to be the produce of Crawford Moor gold nor does there seem to seem to be any reason to discredit the legend." P. 134. The gold rocks of Great Britain and Ireland by J. Calvert.