Aberdeen, probably the Devana on the Diva of Ptolemy, was an important place in the 12th century. William the Lion had a residence in the city, to which he gave a charter in 1179, confirming the corporate rights granted by David I. The city received many subsequent royal charters. It was burned by Edward III. in 1336, but it was soon rebuilt and extended, and called New Aberdeen. The houses were of timber and thatched, and many such existed till 1741. The burgh records are the oldest of any Scottish burgh. They begin in 1398, and are complete to the present time, with only a short break. Extracts from them, extending from 1398 to 1570, have been published by the Spalding Club. For many centuries the city was subject to attacks by the barons of the surrounding districts, and its avenues and six ports had to be guarded. The ports had all been removed by 1770. Several monasteries existed in Aberdeen before the Reformation. Most of the Scottish sovereigns visited the city and received gifts from the authorities. In 1497 a blockhouse was built at the harbour mouth as a protection against the English. During the religious struggle in the 17th century between the Royalists and Covenanters the city was plundered by both parties. In 1715 Earl Marischal proclaimed the Pretender at Aberdeen. In 1745 the Duke of Cumberland resided a short time in the city. In the middle of the 18th century boys were kidnapped in Aberdeen, and sent as slaves to America. In 1817 the city became insolvent, with a debt of £225,7 10, contracted by public improvements, but the debt was soon paid off. The motto on the city arms is Bon-Accord. It formed the watchword of the Aberdonians while aiding King Robert the Bruce in his battles with the English.

Of eminent men connected with Aberdeen, New and Old, may be mentioned—John Barbour, Hector Boece or Boethius, Bishop Elphinstone, the Earls Marischal; George Jamesone, the famous portrait painter; Edward Raban, the first printer in Aberdeen, 1622; Rev. Andrew Cant, the Covenanter; David Anderson (Davie do a’ thing), a mechanic; James Gregory, inventor of the reflecting telescope; Dr Thomas Reid, the metaphysician; Dr George Campbell, Principal of Marischal College, author of several important works, and best known by his Philosophy of Rhetoric; Dr James Beattie; Lord* Byron; Sir James Mackintosh; Robert Hall; Dr R. Hamilton, who wrote on the National Debt.

Till 1800 the city stood on a few eminences, and had steep, narrow, and crooked streets, but, since the Improvement Act of that year, the whole aspect of the place has been altered by the formation of two new spacious and nearly level streets (Union Street and King Street, meeting in Castle Street), and by the subsequent laying out of many others, besides squares, terraces, &c., on nearly flat ground. The city is above eight miles in circuit, and is built on sand, gravel, and boulder clay. The highest parts are from 90 to 170 feet above the sea. The chief thoroughfare is Union Street, nearly a mile long and 70 feet broad. It runs W.S.W. from Castle Street, and crosses the Den-burn, now the railway valley, by a noble granite arch 132 feet in span and 50 feet high, which cost, with a hidden arch on each side, £13,000.

Aberdeen is now a capacious, elegant, and well-built town, and from the material employed, consisting chiefly of light grey native granite, is called the “granite city.” It contains many fine public buildings. The principal of these is Marischal College or University Buildings, which stands on the site of a pre-Reformation Franciscan Convent, and was rebuilt, 1836-1841, at a cost of about £30,000. It forms three sides of a court, which is 117 by 105 feet, and has a back wing, and a tower 100 feet high. The accommodation consists of twenty-five large class-rooms and laboratories, a hall, library, museums, &c.

The University of Aberdeen was formed by the union and incorporation, in 1860, by Act of Parliament, of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, founded in Old Aberdeen, in 1494, by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, under the authority of a Papal bull obtained by James IV., and of the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, founded in New Aberdeen, in 1593, by George Keith, Earl Marischal, by a charter ratified by Act of Parliament. The officials consist of a chancellor, with rector and principal; there are 21 professors and 8 assistants. Arts and divinity are taught in King’s College, and medicine, natural history, and law in Marischal College. The arts session lasts from the end of October to the beginning of April. The arts curriculum of four years, with graduation, costs £36, 11s. There are 214 arts bursaries, 29 divinity, and 1 medical, of the aggregate annual value of £3646, £650, and £26, respectively. About 60 arts bursaries, mostly from £10 to £35 in value, are given yearly by competition, or by presentation and examination. Two-thirds of the arts students are bursars. Seventeen annual scholarships and prizes of the yearly value of £758 are given at the end of the arts curriculum. The average yearly number of arts students, in the thirteen years since the union of the arts classes of the two colleges in 1860, has been 342, while in the separate colleges together for the nine years before the union, it was 431. In winter session 1872-73 there were 623 matriculated students in all the faculties. In 1872, 32 graduated in arts, 68 in medicine, 5 in divinity, and 1 in law. The library has above 80,000 volumes. The General Council in 1873 had 2075 registered members, who, with those σf Glasgow University, return one member to Parliament.

The Free Church Divinity College was built in 1850, at the cost of £2025, in the Tudor-Gothic style. It has a large hall, a library of 12,000 volumes, and 15 bursaries of the yearly value of from £10 to £25.

At the east end of Union Street, and partly in Castle Street, on the north side, are the new County and Municipal buildings, an imposing Franco-Scottish Gothic pile, 225 feet long, 109 feet broad, and 64 feet high, of four stories, built 1867-1873 at the cost of £80,000, including £25,000 for the site. Its chief feature is a tower 200 feet high. It contains a great hall, 74 feet long, 35 feet broad, and 50 feet high, with an open timber ceiling: a Justiciary Court-House, 50 feet long, 37 feet broad, and 31 feet high; a Town Hall, 41 feet long, 25 feet broad, and 15 feet high, and a main entrance corridor 60 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 24 feet high. A little to the west is the Town and County Bank, a highly ornamented building inside and outside, in the Italian style, costing about £24,000.

A very complete closed public market of two floors was built in 1842, at a cost of £28,000, by a company incorporated by Act of Parliament. The upper floor or great hall is 315 feet long, 106 feet broad, and 45 feet high, with galleries all round. The lower floor is not so high. The floors contain numerous small shops for the sale of meat, fowls, fish, &c., besides stalls and seats for the sale of vegetables, butter, eggs, &c. The galleries contain small shops for the sale of drapery, hardware, fancy goods, and books. On the upper floor is a fountain of polished Peterhead granite, costing £200, with a basin 7¼ feet diameter, cut out of one block of stone. Connected with this undertaking was the laying out of Market Street from Union Street to the quay. At the foot of this street is being built in the Italian style the new post and telegraph office, at a cost of £16,000, including £4000, the cost of the site. It is to form a block of about 100 feet square and 40 feet high.

Aberdeen has about 60 places of worship, with nearly 48,000 sittings. There are 10 Established churches; 20 Free, 6 Episcopalian, 6 United Presbyterian, 5 Congregational, 2 Baptist, 2 Methodist, 2 Evangelical Union, 1 Unitarian, 1 of Roman Catholic, 1 of Friends, and 1 of Original Seceders. There are also several mission chapels. In 1843 all the Established ministers seceded, with 10,000 lay members. The Established and Free Church denominations have each about 11,000 members in communion. The Established West and East churches, in the centre of the city, within St Nicholas churchyard, form a continuous building 220 feet long, including an intervening aisle, over which is a tower and spire 140 feet high. The West was built in 1775 in the Italian style, and the East in 1834 in the Gothic, each costing about £5000. They occupy the site of the original cruciform church of St Nicholas, erected in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. One of the nine bells in the tower bears the date of 1352. and is 4 feet diameter at the mouth, 3½ feet high, and very thick. The Union Street front of the churchyard is occupied by a very elegant granite façade, built in 1830, at the cost of £1460. It is 147½ feet long, with a central arched gateway and entablature 32 ½ feet high, with two attached Ionic columns on each side. Each of the two wings has six Ionic columns (of single granite blocks, 15 feet 2 inches long), with basement and entablature, the whole being 23½feet high. The following are the style, cost, and date of erection of the other principal Aberdeen churches—St Andrew’s, Episcopal, Gothic, £6000, 1817; North Church, Established, Greek, £10,000, 1831; three churches in a cruciform group, Free, simple Lancet Gothic, with a fine brick spire 174 feet high, £5000, 1844; Roman Catholic, Gothic, £12,000, 1859; Free West, Gothic, £12,856, 1869, with a spire 175 feet high.

In 1873 there were in Aberdeen about 110 schools, with from 10,000 to 11,000 pupils in attendance. About 2500 students attend the University, Mechanics’ Institution, and private schools for special branches.

Five miles south-west of Aberdeen, on the south side of the Dee, in Kincardineshire, is St Mary’s Roman Catholic College of Blairs, with a president and three professors.

The Aberdeen Grammar School, dating from about 1263, is a preparatory school for the university. It has a rector and four regular masters, who teach classics, English, arithmetic, and mathematics, for the annual fee of £4, 10s. for each pupil. Writing, drawing, &c., are also taught. Nearly 200 pupils attend, who enter about the age of twelve. Like the Edinburgh High School, it has no elementary department. There are 30 bursaries. A new granite building for the school was erected, 1861-1863, in the Scotch baronial style, at the cost of £16,000, including site. It is 215 feet long and 60 feet high, and has three towers.

The Mechanics’ Institution, founded 1824, and reorganised 1834, has a hall, class-rooms, and a library of 14,000 volumes, in a building erected in 1846, at a cost of £3500. During the year 1872—73, there were at the School of Science and Art 385 pupils; and at other evening classes, 538.

Aberdeen has two native banks, besides branch banks, and a National Security Savings Bank; three insurance companies, four shipping companies, three railway companies, and a good many miscellaneous companies. There are ten licensed pawnbroking establishments, with about 440,000 pledges in the year for £96,000, and with a capital of £27,000. There are seven incorporated trades, originating between 1398 and 1527, and having charitable funds for decayed members, widows, and orphans. They have a hall, built in 1847 for £8300, in the Tudor Gothic style. The hall, 60 feet long, 29 wide, and 42 high, contains curious old chairs, and curious inscriptions on the shields of the crafts.

Among the charitable institutions is Gordon’s Hospital, founded in 1729 by a miser, Robert Gordon, a Dantzic merchant, of the Straloch family, and farther endowed by Alexander Simpson of Collyhill in 1816. It is managed by the Town Council and four of the Established ministers of Aberdeen, incorporated by royal charters of 1772 and 1792. The central part of the house was built in 1739, and the wings in 1830-1834, the whole costing £17,300, and being within a garden of above four acres. It now (1873) maintains and educates (in English, writing, arithmetic, physics, mathematics, drawing, music, French, &c.) 180 boys of the age 9 to 15, the sons and grandsons of decayed burgesses of guild and trade of the city; and next those of decayed inhabitants (not paupers). Expenditure for year to 31st October 1872, £4353 for 164 boys. It has a head-master, three regular, and several visiting masters. The Boys’ and Girls’ Hospital, lately built for £10,000, maintains and educates 50 boys and 50 girls.

The Female Orphan Asylum, founded by Mrs Elmslie, in 1840, and managed by trustees, maintains and educates, chiefly as domestic servants, 46 girls between the ages of 4 and 16, at the yearly cost for each of about £23, 13s. Those admitted must be legitimate orphan daughters of respectable parents, who have lived three years immediately before death in Aberdeen or in the adjoining parishes of Old Machar and Nigg. The Hospital for Orphan and Female Destitute Children, endowed by John Carnegie and the trustees of the Murtle Fund, maintains and educates 50 girls, chiefly for domestic service. The Asylum for the Blind, established in 1843, on a foundation by Miss Cruickshank, maintains and educates about 10 blind children, and gives industrial employment to blind adults. There is a boys’ and girls’ school for 150 boys and 150 girls on Dr Bell’s foundation. The Industrial Schools, begun by Sheriff Watson in 1841, and the Reformatory Schools, begun in 1857, having some 600 pupils on the roll, have greatly diminished juvenile crime in the district. The Murtle or John Gordon’s Charitable Fund, founded in 1815, has an annual revenue from land of about £2400, applicable to all kinds of charity, in sums from £5 to £300. The Midbeltie Fund, founded by a bequest of £20,000, in 1848, by James Allan of Midbeltie, gives yearly pensions ranging from £5 to £15 to respectable decayed widows in the parishes of St Nicholas and Old Machar.

The two parishes in which Aberdeen is situated, viz., St Nicholas and Old Machar, have each a large poor-house. The poor of both parishes cost about £20,000 a year.

The Royal Infirmary, instituted in 1740, was rebuilt 1833-1840, in the Grecian style, at the cost of £17,000. It is a well-situated, large, commodious, and imposing building. It has three stories, the front being 166 feet long and 50 feet high, with a dome. A detached feverhouse was built in 1872 for about £2500. The managers were incorporated by royal charter in 1773, and much increased in number in 1852. The institution is supported by land rents, feu-duties, legacies, donations, subscriptions, church collections, &c. Each bed has on an average 1200 cubic feet of space. There are on the average 130 resident patients, costing each on the average a shilling daily, and the number of patients treated may be stated at 1700 annually, besides outdoor patients receiving advice and medicine. The recent annual expenditure has been about £4300. There is a staff of a dozen medical officers.

The Royal Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1800, consists of two separate houses, valued in 1870 at £40,000, in an enclosure of 40 acres. It is under the same management as the Infirmary. The recent daily average of patients has been about 420, at an annual cost of £13,000. The annual rate for each pauper is £25, 10s. The General Dispensary, Vaccine, and Lying-in Institution, founded in 1823, has had as many as 6781 cases in one year. The Hospital for Incurables has a daily average of 26 patients, and the Ophthalmic and Auric Institution has had 671 cases in a year.

The Music Hall, built in 1821 and 1859 at the cost of £16,500, has a front 90 feet long, with a portico of 6 Ionic pillars 30 feet high; large, highly-decorated lobbies and looms; and a hall 150 feet long, 68 broad, and 50 high, with a flat ceiling, and galleries. The hall holds 2000 persons seated, and has a fine organ and an orchestra for 300. Here H.R.H. Prince Albert opened the British Association, as president, 14th September 1859. A new Theatre and Opera House was built in 1872, in the mixed Gothic style, for £8400, with the stage 52½ feet by 29, and the auditorium for 1700 to 1800 persons. The front wall is of bluish granite and red and yellow freestone, with some polished Peterhead granite pillars, the rest being built of concrete.

In Castle Street, the City Place and Old Market Stance, is the Market Cross, a beautiful, open-arched, hexagonal structure of freestone, 21 feet diameter, and 18 feet high. It has Ionic columns and pilasters, and an entablature of twelve panels. On ten of the panels are medallions, cut in stone, in high relief, of the Scottish sovereigns from James I. to James VII. From the centre rises a composite column 12½ feet high, with a Corinthian capital, on which is the royal unicorn rampant. This cross was planned and erected about 1682 by John Montgomery, a native architect, for £100 sterling. On the north side of the same street, adjoining the municipal buildings, is the North of Scotland Bank, a Grecian building in granite, with a portico of Corinthian columns, having most elaborately carved capitals. On an eminence east of Castle Street are the military barracks for 600 men, built in 1796 for £16,000.

The principal statues in the city are those of the last Duke of Gordon—died 1836—in grey granite, 10 feet high; Queen Victoria, in white Sicilian marble, 8½ feet high; Prince Albert, bronze, natural-size, sitting posture; and a curious rough stone figure, of unknown date, supposed to be Sir William Wallace.

The Dee to the south of the city is crossed by three bridges, the old bridge of Dee, an iron suspension bridge, and the Caledonian Railway bridge. The first, till 1832 the only access to the city from the south, consists of seven semicircular ribbed arches, is about 30 feet high, and was built early in the 16th century by Bishops Elphinstone and Dunbar. It was nearly all rebuilt 1718-1723, and from being 14½ feet wide, it was in 1842 made 26 feet wide. From Castle Street, King Street leads in the direction of the new bridge of Don (a little east of the old “Brig o’ Balgownie”), of five granite arches, each 75 feet span, built for nearly £13,000 in 1827-1832.

A defective harbour, and a shallow sand and gravel bar at its entrance, long retarded the trade of Aberdeen, but, under various Acts since 1773, they have been greatly deepened. The north pier, built partly by Smeaton, 1775-1781, and partly by Telford, 1810-1815, extends 2000 feet into the German Ocean. It is 30 feet broad, and, with the parapet, rises 15 feet above high water. It consists of large granite blocks. It has increased the depth of water on the bar from a few feet to 22 or 24 feet at spring tides, and to 17 or 18 feet at neap. The wet dock, of 29 acres, and with 6000 feet of quay, was completed in 1848, and called Victoria Dock, in honour of Her Majesty’s visit to the city in that year. These and other improvements of the harbour and its entrance cost £325,000 down to 1848. By the Harbour Act of 1868, the Dee near the harbour has been diverted to the south, at the cost of £80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) for harbour works are being made up on the city or north side of the river; £80,000 has been laid out in forming in the sea, at the south side of the river, a new breakwater of concrete, 1050 feet long, against south and south-east storms. The navigation channel is being widened and deepened, and the old pier or breakwater on the north side of the river mouth is to be lengthened at least 500 feet seaward. A body of 31 commissioners manage the harbour affairs.

Aberdeen Bay affords safe anchorage with off-shore winds, but not with those from the N.E., E., and S.E. On the Girdleness, the south point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833, in...

The chief rivers are the Dee, 96 miles long; Don, 78; Ythan, 37, with mussel beds at its mouth; Ugie, 20; and Deveron, 58, partly on the boundary of Banffshire. The pearl mussel occurs in the Ythan and Don. A valuable pearl in the Scottish crown is said to be from the Ythan. Loch Muick, the largest of the few lakes in the county, 1310 feet above the sea, is only 2½ miles long and ⅓ to ½ mile broad. The rivers have plenty of salmon and trout. There are noted chalybeate springs at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Pananich near Ballater.

The climate of Aberdeenshire, except in the mountainous districts, is comparatively mild, from the sea being on two sides. The mean annual temperature at Braemar is 43° ∙6 Fahr., and at Aberdeen 45° ∙8. The mean yearly rainfall varies from about 30 to 37 inches. The summer climate of the Upper Dee and Don valleys is the driest and most bracing in the British Isles, and grain is cultivated up to 1600 feet above the sea, or 400 to 500 feet higher than elsewhere in North Britain. All the crops cultivated in Scotland ripen, and the people often live to a great age.

The rocks are mostly granite, gneiss, with small tracts of syenite, mica slate, quartz rock, clay slate, grauwacke, primary limestone, old red sandstone, serpentine, and trap. Lias, greensand, and chalk flints occur. The rocks are much covered with boulder clay, gravel, sand, and alluvium. Brick clay occurs near the coast. The surface of the granite under the boulder clay often presents glacial smoothings, grooves, and roundings. Cairngorm stone, beryl, and amethyst are found in the granite of Braemar.

The tops of the highest mountains have an arctic flora. At Her Majesty’s Lodge, Loch Muick, 1350 feet above the sea, grow larches, vegetables, currants, laurels, roses, Ac. Some ash trees, 4 or 5 feet in girth, are growing at 1300 feet above the sea. The mole occurs at 1800 feet above the sea, and the squirrel at 1400. Trees, especially Scotch fir and larch, grow well in the county, and Braemar abounds in natural timber, said to surpass any in the north of Europe. Stumps of Scotch fir and oak found in peat in the county are often far larger than any now growing. Grouse, partridges, and hares abound in the county, and rabbits are often too numerous. Red deer abound in Braemar, the deer forest being there valued at £5000 a year, and estimated at 500,000 acres, or one-fourth the area of deer forests in Scotland.

Poor, gravelly, clayey, and peaty soils prevail much more in Aberdeenshire than good rich loams, but tile draining, bones, and guano, and the best modes of modern tillage, have greatly increased the produce. Farm-houses and steadings have greatly improved, and the best agricultural implements and machines are in general use. About two-thirds of the population depend entirely on agriculture, and oatmeal in various forms, with milk, is the chief food of farm-servants. Farms are generally small, compared with those in the south-east counties. The fields are separated by dry-stone dykes, and also by wooden and wire fences. Leases of 19 or 21 years prevail, and the five, six, or seven shift rotation is in general use. In 1872 there were 11,642 occupiers of land, with an average of 50 acres each, and paying about £536,000 in rent. Of the 585,299 acres of the county in crop in 1872, 191,880 acres were in oats, 18,930 in barley and here, 1633 in rye, 1357 in wheat, 95,091 in turnips (being one-fifth of the turnips grown in Scotland), 8414 in potatoes, 232,178 in grasses and clover. In 1872 the county had 23,117 horses, 157,960 cattle (being above one-seventh of all the cattle in Scotland), 128,308 sheep, and 13,579 pigs. The county is unsurpassed in breeding, and unrivalled in feeding cattle, and this is more attended to than the cultivation of grain-crops. About 40,000 fat cattle are reared, and above £1,000,000 value of cattle and dead meat is sent from the county to London yearly. The capital invested in agriculture within the county is estimated at about £5,133,000.

The great mineral wealth in Aberdeenshire is its long-famed durable granite, which is largely quarried for building, paving, causewaying, and polishing. An acre of land on being reclaimed has yielded £40 to £50 worth of causewaying stones. Gneiss is also quarried, as also primary limestone, old red sandstone, conglomerate millstone, grauwacke, clay slate, syenite, and hornblende rock. Iron ore, manganese, and plumbago occur in the county.

A large fishing population in villages along the coast engage in the white and herring fishery. Haddocks are salted and rock-dried (speldings), or smoked (finnans). The rivers and coasts yield many salmon. Peterhead was long the chief British port for the north whale and seal fishery, but Dundee now vies with it in this industry.

The manufactures and arts of the county are mainly prosecuted in or near the town of Aberdeen, but throughout the rural districts there are much milling of corn, brick and tile making, stone-quarrying, smith-work, brewing and distilling, cart and farm implement making, casting and drying of peat, timber felling, especially on Deeside and Donside, for pit-props, railway sleepers, lath, barrel staves, &c. The chief imports into the county are, coals, lime, timber, iron, slates, raw materials of textile manufactures, wheat, cattle-feeding stuffs, bones, guano, sugar, alcoholic liquors, fruits, &c. The chief exports are granite (rough, dressed, and polished), flax, woollen, and cotton goods, paper, combs, preserved provisions, oats, barley, live and dead cattle, Ac. In the county there are about 520 fairs in the year for cattle, horses, sheep, hiring servants, Ac.

Aberdeenshire communicates with the south by the Caledonian Railway, and five macadamised roads across the east Grampians, the highest rising 2200 feet above the sea. About 188 miles of railway (the Great North of Scotland, Formartin and Buchan, and Deeside lines), and 2359 miles of public roads, ramify through the county. Tolls over the county were abolished in 1865, and the roads are kept up by assessment. The railway lines in the county have cost on the average about £13,500 a mile. Several macadamised roads and the Great North of Scotland Railway form the main exits from the county to the north-west.

The chief antiquities in Aberdeenshire are Picts’ houses or weems; stone foundations of circular dwellings; monoliths, some being sculptured; the so-called Druid circles; stone cists; stone and earthen enclosures; the vitrified forts of Dunnideer and Noath; cairns; crannoges; earthen mounds, as the Bass; flint arrow-heads; clay funeral urns; stone celts and hammers. Remains of Roman camps occur at Peterculter, Kintore, and Auchterless, respectively 107½, 100, and 115 acres. Roman arms have been found. Ruins of ancient edifices occur. On the top of a conical hill called Dunnideer. in the Garioch district, are the remains of a castle, supposed to be 700 years old, and surrounded by a vitrified wall, which must be still older. The foundations of two buildings still remain, the one in Braemar, and the other in the Loch of Cannor (the latter with the remains of a wooden bridge between it and the land), which are supposed to have belonged to Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland. The most extensive ruins are the grand ones of Kildrummy Castle, evidently once a princely seat, and still covering nearly an acre of ground. It belonged to David Earl of Huntingdon in 1150, and was the seat of the Earls of Marr attainted in 1716. The Abbey of Deer, now in ruins, was begun by Cumyn Earl of Buchan about 1219.

In Roman times, Aberdeenshire formed part of Ves-pasiana in Caledonia, and was occupied by the Taixali, a warlike tribe. The local names are mostly Gaelic. St Columba and his pupil Drostan visited Buchan in the 6th century. In 1052 Macbeth fell near the Peel Bog in Lumphanan, and a cairn which marks the spot is still shown. In 1309 Bruce defeated Cornyn, Earl of Buchan, near Inverurie, and annihilated a powerful Norman family. In 1411 the Earl of Marr defeated Donald of the Isles in the battle of Harlaw, near Inverurie, when Sir Robert Davidson, Provost of Aberdeen, was killed. In 1562 occurred the battle of Corrichie on the Hill of Fare, when the Earl of Murray defeated the Marquis of Huntly. In 1715 the Earl of Marr proclaimed the Pretender in Braemar. In 1746 the Duke of Cumberland with his army marched through Aberdeenshire to Culloden. In 1817 a base line of verification, 5 miles 100 feet long, was measured in connection with the Trigonometrical Survey of the British Isles, on the Belhelvie Links 5 to 10 miles north of Aberdeen.

Among eminent men connected with Aberdeenshire are, Robert Gordon of Straloch, who in 1648 published the first atlas of Scotland from actual survey; the Earls Marischal, whose chief seat was Inverugie Castle; Field-Marshal Keith, born at Inverugie Castle, 1696; Dr Thomas Reid, the metaphysician, minister of New Machar 1737 to 1752; Lord Pitsligo, attainted 1745; Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, who introduced turnips into the county 1756, and was the first to plant wood on a great scale; Peter Garden, Auchterless, said to have died at the age of 132, about 1780; Rev. John Skinner, author of some popular Scottish songs; Morrison the hygeist; the Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister during the Crimean war.

The native Scotch population of Aberdeenshire are longheaded, shrewd, careful, canny, active, persistent, but reserved and blunt, and without demonstrative enthusiasm. They have a physiognomy distinct from the rest of the Scottish people, and have a quick, sharp, rather angry accent. The local Scotch dialect is broad, and rich in diminutives, and is noted for the use of e for o or u, f for uh , d for th, &c. In 1830 Gaelic was the fireside language almost every family in Braemar, but now it is little used.

Aberdeenshire has a Lord-Lieutenant and 3 Vice and 60 Deputy-Lieutenants. The Supreme Court of Justiciary sits in Aberdeen twice a-year to try cases from the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine. The counties of Aberdeen and Kincardine are under a Sheriff and two Sheriffs-Substitute. The Sheriff Courts are held in Aberdeen and Peterhead. Sheriff Small-Debt and Circuit Courts are held at seven places in the county. There are Burgh' or Bailie Courts in Aberdeen and the other royal burghs in the county. Justice of the Peace and Police Courts are held in Aberdeen, &c. The Sheriff Courts take cognisance of Commissary business. During 1871, 994 persons were confined in the Aberdeenshire prisons. In the year 1870-71, 74 parishes in the county were assessed £53,703 for 7702 poor on the roll and 1847 casual poor.

Aberdeenshire contains 105 Established churches, 99 Free, 31 Episcopal, 15 United Presbyterian, 9 Roman Catholic, and 31 of other denominations. This includes detached parts of the two adjacent counties.

By the census of 1871, 84∙83 per cent. of the children in the county, of the ages 5 to 13, were receiving education. Those formerly called the parochial schoolmasters of Aberdeenshire participate in the Dick and Milne Bequests, which contributed more salary to the schoolmasters in some cases than did the heritors. Most of the schoolmasters arc Masters of Arts, and many are preachers. Of 114 parochial schools in the county before the operation of the new Education Act, 89 received the Milne Bequest of £20 a year, and 91 the Dick Bequest, averaging £30 a year, and a schoolmaster with both bequests would have a yearly income of £145 to £150, and in a few cases £250. The higher branches of education have been more taught in the schools of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff than in the other Scotch counties, and pupils have been long in the habit of going direct from the schools of these two counties to the University.

The value of property, or real rental of the lands and heritages in the county (including the burghs, except that of Aberdeen), for the year 1872-73, was £769,191. The railway and the water works in the city and county were for the same year valued at £11,133. For general county purposes for the year ending 15th May 1872, there was assessed £14,803 to maintain police, prisons, militia, county and municipal buildings, &c., and £19,320 to maintain 2359 miles of public county roads.

The chief seats on the proprietary estates are—Balmoral Castle, the Queen; Mar Lodge and Skene House, Earl of Fife; Aboyne Castle, Marquis of Huntly; Dunecht House, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres; Keith Hall, Earl of Kintore; Slains Castle, Earl of Errol; Haddo House, Earl of Aberdeen; Castle Forbes, Lord Forbes; Philorth House, Lord Saltoun; Huntly Lodge, the Duke of Richmond. Other noted seats are—Drum, Irvine; Invercauld, Farquharson; Newe Castle, Forbes; Castle Fraser, Fraser; Cluny Castle, Gordon; Meldrum House, Urquhart; Craigs-ton Castle, Urquhart; Pitfour, Ferguson; Ellon Castle, Gordon; Fyvie Castle, Gordon. Ten baronets and knights have residences in the county. Of the proprietors many Eve permanently on their estates. Their prevailing names are Gordon, Forbes, Grant, Fraser, Duff, and Farquharson.

Aberdeenshire has one city, Aberdeen, a royal pariia-mentary burgh; three other royal parliamentary burghs, Inverurie, Kintore, and Peterhead; and seven burghs of barony, Old Aberdeen, Charleston of Aboyne, Fraserburgh, Huntly, Old Meldrum, Rosehearty, and Turriff.

The county sends two members to Parliament—one for East Aberdeenshire, with 4341 electors, and the other for West Aberdeenshire, with 3942 electors. The county has also four parliamentary burghs, which, with their respective populations in 1871, are—Aberdeen, 88,125; Peterhead, 8535; Inverurie, 2856; and Kintore, 659. The first sends one member to Parliament, and the other three unite with Elgin, Cullen, and Banff, in sending another.

By the census 1801 the county had 121,065 inhabitants, and by that of 1871, 244,603, with 53,576 families, 111 females to 100 males, 34,589 inhabited houses, 1052 uninhabited houses, and 256 budding. In 1871 there were in eight towns (Aberdeen, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Huntly, Inverurie, Old Meldrum, Turriff, and New Pitsligo), 111,978 inhabitants; in 32 villages, 19,561; and in rural districts, 113,064.

(New Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xii.; the charters of the burgh; extracts from the Council Register down to 1625, and selections from the letters, guildry, and treasurer’s accounts, forming 3 volumes of the Spalding Club; Collections for a History of the Shires of A. and Banff, edited by Joseph Robertson, Esq., 4to, Spalding Club; Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, vols. i. and ii., by Prof. Cosmo Innes, 4to, Spalding Club; The History of A., by Walter Thom, 2 vols. 12mo, 1811; Buchan, by the Rev. John B. Pratt, 12mo, 1859; Historical Account and Delineation of A., by Robert Wilson, 1822; First Report of Royal Com. on Hist. MSS., 1869; The Annals of A., by William Kennedy, 1818; Orem’s Description of the Chanonry, Cathedral, and King’s College of Old A., 1724—25, 1830; The Castellated Architecture of A., by Sir Andrew Leith Hay of Rannes, imp. 4to; Specimens of Old Castellated Houses of A., with drawings by Giles, folio, 1838; Lives of Eminent Men of A., by James Bruce, 12mo, 1841). (a. c.)