Page:Annals of Duddingston and Portobello.pdf/73

40 doned, the Joppa Brick Work fell into ruins, and as we have indicated, has left no visible trace behind.

The larger or Easter Duddingston quarry continued to be used by Mr Livingston till his death in 1858, and by his son, Mr Allan Livingston, some years thereafter ; but for more than a quarter of & century it has ceased to be wrought.

The fire-clay was dug out by running long parallel galleries underground following the stratum, and here, as in the adjoining coal pits, the drudgery work of carrying the fire-clay was often done by women, who toiled along the low-roofed galleries to the open level with their boxes on their backs called ‘‘ hutches,”’ fastened with a leather strap across their foreheads like a fishwife’s creel ; each load weighing nearly a hundredweight. Toilsome, unhealthy work it must have been, degrading to the last degree as employment for women. But we have people living amongst us still who remember seeing them engaged at it.

During the latter years of his life, when residing in Portobello. Hugh Miller found the quarry of Joppa a favourite hunting-ground. Here in its inner recesses, he discovered many interesting geological specimens, which furnished him with illustrations and confirmations of those wonderful theories of his which so charmed and instructed the scientific world of forty or fifty years ago.