The chief centre of attraction is a partially-wrought limestone quarry, known by the name of the Sheethiehead, right above the village of Kinnesswood, and about a gunshot back from the brow of the Bishop Hill. It is surrounded on all sides by immense heaps of debris, which has been repeatedly dug into during the last thirty years by geologising students, in search of fossils connected with the carboniferous system, and who must have frequently met with the substance which has caused all this excitement, but never imagined it to be gold. The face of the quarry, to the depth of twenty feet from the top, is an accumulation of shale or slate, lying in regular layers, and easily broken. It has been turned to good account of late in the manufacture of slate-pencils of superior quality. Among this shaly accumulation, there are frequent layers of a soft, wet clay or ochre; and it is in this that the brilliants which have dazzled the imagination of so many are chiefly found, and which, accordingly, are frequently thrown out among the debris, of which it comes to form a part. In this quarry, then, and in the heaps around it, hundreds are earnestly busy in laying bare what is beneath; while scores of men, women, and children are silently and earnestly looking on. One has just brought out a ball of stone, or something like stone, about the size of a man's hand, known among the quarrymen as 'a fairy ball;' it is composed of a hard crust, like rusted iron, which, on being broken, is found to contain a yellow shining metal of various shapes and sizes--grains, octohedrons, cubes, and their allied forms, as is the case with gold; and what else can it be but the precious metal, thinks the finder, as he places it in his receptacle, and applies himself anew to his vocation. In a little while he stumbles on another of these balls, as big as a man's hat, which he breaks, and opens with increasing eagerness; when, lo! it is as empty as a 'deaf nut'--the water which percolated through the shale having rusted the iron that goes to form the crust along with the ochre, but failed, as in the previous case, to form crystals in the interior. A third, fourth, and fifth are found to be as hollow as the last, and the 'digger' begins to look a little crestfallen, and abate his eagerness. But here is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired, he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to go into the bog beyont there, and get him some poteen, which he is sure is making in the stills among the turf;' offering him at the same time a lump of his 'treasure' as payment for his trouble.