A remarkable geological phenomenon, resulting in the ruin of a family of Morayland gentry, is here in question. We learn from an act of parliament, passed two months later, that, within the preceding twenty years, two-thirds of the estate of Culbin had been overwhelmed with blown sand, so that no trace of the manor-house, yards, orchards, or mains thereof, was now to be seen, though formerly ‘as considerable as many in the country of Moray.’ Alexander Kinnaird of Culbin now represented to the parliament, that full cess was still charged for his lands, being nearly as much as the remainder of them produced to him in rent; and he petitioned that his unfortunate estate might, in consideration of his extraordinary misfortune, be altogether exempted from cess. Three years after this date, we hear of the remaining _fourth_ part of Culbin as sold for the benefit of the creditors of the proprietor, and himself suing to parliament for a personal protection. In time, the entire ruin of the good old barony was completed. Hugh Miller says: ‘I have wandered for hours amid the sandwastes of this ruined barony, and seen only a few stunted bushes of broom, and a few scattered tufts of withered bent, occupying, [Sidenote: 1695.] amid utter barrenness, the place of what, in the middle of the seventeenth century, had been the richest fields of the rich province of Moray; and, where the winds had hollowed out the sand, I have detected, uncovered for a few yards-breadth, portions of the buried furrows, sorely dried into the consistence of sun-burned brick, but largely charged with the seeds of the common cornfield weeds of the country, that, as ascertained by experiment by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, still retain their vitality. It is said that an antique dove-cot, in front of the huge sand-wreath which enveloped the manor-house, continued to present the top of its peaked roof over the sand, as a foundered vessel sometimes exhibits its vane over the waves, until the year 1760. The traditions of the district testify that, for many years after the orchard had been enveloped, the topmost branches of the fruit-trees, barely seen over the surface, continued each spring languidly to throw out bud and blossom; and it is a curious circumstance, that in the neighbouring churchyard of Dike there is a sepulchral monument of the Culbin family, which, though it does not date beyond the reign of James VI., was erected by a lord and lady of the lost barony, at a time when they seem to have had no suspicion of the utter ruin which was coming on their house. The quaint inscription runs as follows: VALTER : KINNAIRD : ELIZABETH : INNES : 1613 : THE : BVILDARS : OF : THIS : BED : OF : STANE : AR : LAIRD : AND : LADIE : OF : COVBINE : QVHILK : TVA : AND : THARS : QVHANE : BRAITHE IS : GANE : PLEIS : GOD : VIL : SLEIP : THIS : BED : VITHIN :