~Highland Gathering.~--The Birmingham Celtic Society held their first "gathering" at Lower Grounds, August 2, 1879, when the ancient sports of putting stones, throwing hammers, etc., was combined with a little modern bicycling, and steeple-chasing, to the music of the bagpipes. ~Hill (Sir Rowland).~--See "_Noteworthy Men_." ~Hills.~--Like unto Rome this town may be said to be built on seven hills, for are there not Camp Hill and Constitution Hill, Summer Hill and Snow Hill, Ludgate Hill, Hockley Hill, and Holloway Hill (or head). Turner's Hill, near Lye Cross, Rawley Regis is over 100ft. higher than Sedgley Beacon, which is 486ft. above sea level. The Lickey Hills are about 800ft. above same level, but the highest hill within 50 miles of Birmingham is the Worcestershire Beacon, 1395ft. above sea level. The highest mountain in England, Scawfell Pike, has an elevation of 3229ft. ~Hailstorms.~--In 1760 a fierce hailstorm stripped the leaves and fruit from nearly every tree in the apple orchards in Worcestershire, the hail lying on the ground six to eight inches deep, many of the stones and lumps of ice being three and four inches round. In 1798, many windows at Aston Hall were broken by the hail. A very heavy hailstorm did damage at the Botanical gardens and other places, May 9, 1833. There have been a few storms of later years, but none like unto these. ~Hector.~--The formation of Corporation Street, and the many handsome buildings erected and planned in its line, have improved off the face of the earth, more than one classic spot, noted in our local history, foremost among which we must place the house of Mr. Hector, the old friend and schoolfellow of Dr. Samuel Johnson. The great lexicographer spent many happy hours in the abode of his friend, and as at one time there was a slight doubt on the matter, it is as well to place on record here that the house in which Hector, the surgeon, resided, was No. 1, in the Old Square, at the corner of the Minories, afterwards occupied by Mr. William Scholefield, Messrs. Jevons and Mellor's handsome pile now covering the spot. The old rate books prove this beyond a doubt. Hector died there on the 2nd of September, 1794, after having practised as a surgeon, in Birmingham, for the long period of sixty-two years. He was buried in a vault at Saint Philip's Church, Birmingham, where, in the middle aisle, in the front of the north gallery, an elegant inscription to his memory was placed. Hector never married, and Mrs. Careless, a clergyman's widow, Hector's own sister, and Johnson's "first love," resided with him, and appears by the burial register of St. Philip's to have died in October, 1788, and to have been buried there, probably in the vault in which her brother was afterwards interred. In the month of November, 1784, just a month before his own decease, Johnson passed a few days with his friend, Hector, at his residence in the Old Square,