hammer head which had been brought from the Red Smiddy; it required two men to lift it, and to raise it from the ground was a common test of strength; it was removed from Aultbea by Donald Macdonald, fishcurer at Lochinver. It may have been one of the hammers mentioned by Mackenzie of Lochend. There are evidences of extensive charcoal burnings on several flat places along the east bank of the Narrows of Loch Maree for a space of nearly half a mile above the Red Smiddy, and much of the bank immediately above it is black with charcoal and the remains of fires where ore was roasted. There is a tradition that Sir George Hay or his manager projected a canal, to connect the navigable part of the Ewe with the sea at a place called Cuil an Scardain, at the south-west corner of Loch Ewe. Two large circular holes at this place, now nearly filled up with stones cleared from the adjoining arable land, are said to have been borings made to test the feasibility of the project. They give some probability to the tradition. * * * * * In chronological order the Glen Dochartie and Garavaig bloomeries were probably the earliest of the Gairloch ironworks. The Fasagh works seem to have been intermediate between those and the historic series, which includes Furnace (Letterewe), Talladale, and the Red Smiddy. These last belong, as we have seen, to the seventeenth century. Old inhabitants have a tradition that there was a bloomery in Tollie bay on Loch Maree. They say that after it was discontinued the business of tar boiling was carried on at the same place. If this were so, it must have been long ago, for no vestiges of old fir trees are now to be seen in the neighbourhood. Some small fragments of slag are found among the shingle in Tollie bay. Mr Macadam has analysed a sample of this slag, and is of opinion that it is lime-kiln slag; it contains 33 per cent. of carbonate of lime, and 64 per cent. of insoluble silicates, which include only 13 per cent. of metallic iron. There are a few masses of slag near the entrance to the Gairloch churchyard. Owing to the crowded state of the graves within, some interments have recently taken place outside the churchyard, and this slag has been dug up. Mr Macadam finds that it contains 29½ per cent. of metallic iron, and 8¼ per cent. of insoluble silicates. He does not think this slag has been the result of iron-smelting. * * * * * Two notices not already quoted referring to iron mines or the manufacture of iron in the neighbourhood of Loch Maree or Loch Ewe ought to be mentioned before concluding this part of our subject. The following is an extract from the letterpress (written in 1660) on the back of Blaeu's map of the north of Scotland--the old Dutch map previously referred to in these pages. It seems to speak of an outer and inner Loch Ewe, the latter (Loch Maree) surrounded by thick woods where in past years there had been iron mines (_ysermijnen_).