Meanwhile, every test known to or conceivable by the amateur chemists--of which there are not few in the counties in which the hills are situated--was put in requisition, and a voice evoked by them, but it would not speak as desired. Others, who knew nothing of chemistry, were torturing it in every possible way--beating it with hammers, to see if it would expand, like gold, into leaf; but instead of this, it only flew off in splinters: then putting it into the smith's forge, to see if it would liquefy and separate from the dross, but it only evaporated in fumes, which drove them from the smithy by their offensive odour. Not one of these experimenters, whether more or less skilled, thought of subjecting it to the simple and certain test of cutting it with a knife, of which the substance in question is not susceptible, whereas gold cuts like tough cheese. Enough, however, had been done to confirm suspicions which had been floating in the minds of many of the diggers, that this rapid wealth-finding was a delusion and a lie. All doubts upon the subject were finally set at rest by the professors of mineralogy in the colleges, and the practical chemists in Edinburgh and Glasgow, informing certain inquirers as to the real nature of this deceptive substance. It is of two kinds: the one with a gray, the other with a brown base--the latter much more common than the former; the one shining with a whitish, the other, with a yellowish lustre. The one is _galena_, a sulphuret of lead; the other, _pyrites_, a sulphuret of iron. These pyrites are very extensively diffused, and are said to be worth about L.2 a ton. Pity it is that even this trifle should be lost to the poor quarryman, who has only to lay them aside when wheeling away his rubbish till they accumulate to such a quantity as to be worth a purchaser's notice, but who does not know where to find a customer. The Lomonds were now again left to their solitude and silence, a few stray persons visiting them only from curiosity, to see the place and its productions which had caused such excitement. But the mania did not abate all at once. A village patriarch, skilled in fairy lore, entertained some of the gold-seekers with the following legend, which had the effect of sending them in search of the precious metal elsewhere. According to this ancient, a fairy, in times long gone by, appeared on a summer gloaming to a boy herding cattle in the place indicated by the following doggrel, and told him that-- If Auchindownie cock does not craw, If Balmain horn does not blaw, I'll shew you the gold in _Largo Law_.