Aberuchill Castle was for nearly three centuries the seat of the Campbells of Aberuchill and Kilbryde. It was originally built in 1602, but has since been modernised and enlarged. The Crown granted a charter of the lands of Aberuchill in 1596 to Colin Campbell, second son of Sir Colin Campbell of Lawers. His son James was made a baronet of Nova Scotia by Charles I. in 1627. He fell fighting for Charles II. at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Sir Colin, only son of Sir James, succeeded him. He was the most distinguished of the family. Bred to the law, he rose to the position of Lord of Session with the title of Lord Aberuchill. Sir Colin was a Whig and a Presbyterian when the most of the gentry of Strathearn were either Episcopalians or Popish Jacobites. His name is associated with the massacre of Glencoe, inasmuch as he was a member of the Council that refused the certificate of the Sheriff-Depute of Argyle that M'Donald of Glencoe had taken the oath of allegiance to King William, unless they got a warrant to receive it from the King. From 1693 to 1702 he represented the County of Perth in the Scottish Parliament, and died in 1704. From the Campbells, the estate passed into the hands of the Drummonds. It is now the property of Captain Robert Dewhurst, son of George C. Dewhurst, Esq., lately deceased. It would be unpardonable to write anything about Comrie without making allusion to the earthquakes which have made it famous. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, published in the year 1794, the Rev. Mr M'Diarmid, minister of the parish, gives an account of the first recorded earthquake in the district. During the autumn of 1789 loud noises, unaccompanied by any concussion, were heard by the inhabitants of Glenlednock; but on the 5th of November of that year they were alarmed by a loud rumbling noise, accompanied with a severe shock of earthquake, which was felt over a tract of country of more than twenty miles in extent. The Rev. Mr Mackenzie, successor to Mr M'Diarmid, writing in 1838, in the last Statistical Account, says that "at and after the time of the last Statistical Account the earthquakes were so frequent and violent, and accompanied with such noises, as to occasion great alarm, especially one which occurred on a Sabbath while the congregation was assembled." The year 1839, however, was the time of the great earthquakes. Writing in 1842 in the last Statistical Account, the Rev. John Ferguson, minister of Monzievaird, says:--"At this time they began to be frequently felt, nearly 20 shocks being occasionally experienced in 24 hours. The most violent one happened about ten o'clock on the evening of 23d October, 1839. The shock seemed to pass along through the parish of Monzievaird from north-west to south-east. For a second or two every house for miles around the village of Comrie was shaken from top to bottom; and while the motion was passing away to the eastward it was accompanied by a tremendous