objects spread out below. A future career for life was as yet unthought of. But while aiming solely at pleasure, and rejoicing in a holiday’s escape from school, the boy was unconsciously educating himself. Already the botanical box and the geological hammer were in vogue. Not, indeed, the luxurious appliances with which amateur naturalists are now furnished. Any hammer sufficed for getting at a coveted fossil; and as for our _hortus siccus_, an old candle-box was appropriated by the botanical collector. But the archæological tastes in which more than one of William Nelson’s schoolmates sympathized, and to which he gave such practical expression in later years, were already in process of development. The pleasurable associations with historic scenes and picturesque ruins found ample scope in those holiday rambles. Craigmillar Castle was close at hand; and within easy distance was old Roman Cramond, with chances of a numismatic prize to the fortunate explorer, and with the sculptured eagle of the legionaries of the second century still visible on the cliff at the mouth of the river Almond. This had a special charm for boys fresh from their Cæsar and Tacitus, giving a sense of reality to those forgotten centuries. It was an object-lesson, better even than the Roman altar dedicated to the goddess Epona--DEÆ EPONÆ--which Dr. Carson, the Rector of the High School, produced to his class, and won their attentive admiration as he pointed to the focus in which the Roman horse-jockey had poured a libation; and adduced passages from the Satires of Juvenal in confirmation of his theme. Farther afield lay Woodhouselee, Seton and Roslin chapels; Niddry, Borthwick, and Crichton castles; Preston Cross and Tower; and many another storied ruin associated with familiar historic events. Pinkie Cleugh, Carberry Hill, Lasswade, Dalkeith, and Prestonpans, were each linked with song or story. Maclagan was an ardent collector of plants and insects; geology divided with botany the interest of George Wilson; John A. Smith had already begun the collection of coins; and William Nelson was forming the tastes which manifested themselves in later years in his love for every venerable nook of his native city, and in his zeal for the preservation of its historic memorials.