Ossian Collection > Journal of a tour in Scotland in

182 JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND
Daylight enough was left before dinner
would be ready to walk down to the mouth
of the river, where the dredging machine
was at work — an engine of tremendous power,
bringing up its chain of buckets full of stones
and gravel, or whatever comes in its way.
The rubbish is emptied by the buckets as
they revolve, upon a shoot, down which it
slides into a boat; that boat they row some
50 or 60 yards out into the Lake — into
40 fathom water ; and when the rubbish is
let out by a trap door, the boat being suddenly
lightened of its whole burthen, bounds up
like a cork upon the water.
The village is a poor place ; the inn most
inconveniently built, and not well situated.
The only good house is one which Mr Cargill
(a Newcastle man, with a good - natured,
intelligent face, and a genuine hui'v in his
speech) the Master Mason of the stupendous
works which are going on, has erected for
himself. But the Fort itself is very pretty —
a quiet collegiate sort of place, just fit for a
University, if one were to be established, or
for a Beguinage, if the times and the situation
served. The guns have been lately removed ;
and in two places a dwelling house makes
part of the wall ; so that, were it not for