Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/255

 Aberdeen: Its Literature, Bookmaking, and Circulating. 243 cosiness and the natural Scottish " couthiness " which was the distinguishing feature of the inns when Dr. Johnson visited Scotland. Then, twenty-two years after its formation, the British Asso- ciation discovering that Aberdeen was possibly a tolerably civilised place, because Prince Albert resided near it and con- sented to be their President, visited it, and, pleased with their reception and with the profitable results of the large and suc- cessful meeting, revisited it in after years. Aberdeen was then discovered by the Social Science Congress. And now this year we have amongst us the Plumbers' Associ- ation, with the Lord Mayor of London ; the Carriage Builders' Association ; and the body of Librarians bookmen and book- lovers which I have the honour to address, and, as a citizen, to offer a cordial and hearty welcome. While bulking largely in the history of Scotland so long as it was a separate kingdom, it is not much to be wondered at although in early times Aberdeen was very much of a terra incognita to the invaders of the country. The Danes found it out, the Romans followed, and after that oor auld enemies the English. The last two found the range of the Grampians, or more properly " the passage of the Mounth," a formidable obstacle, but the bleak, cold climate, and the sterile soil still more formidable far less tempting than the fertile fields of Midlothian and Strathtay. Around Aberdeen and close up to the houses the low-lying lands lay in swamps and morasses. The steep banks and braes, which still bound Union Street gardens and the railway station, then outside the city, were thickets of broom and gorse; while for many miles beyond, the soil was invisible, being covered with weather-worn boulders of all sizes, deposited by ancient glaciers. Remains of these may still be seen by those who choose to keep their eyes open, in walls of eight or ten feet thickness to be found as the enclosures of many fields around the city, although for the purpose of macadamising the roads the stones have been materially re- duced of late years. Even so late as 1746 in the maps of the period, Aberdeen is represented as a place of some ten crooked, narrow, and steep streets, while all around it the country was lying waste and barren. Amid this howling wilderness there were patches laid out in pasture, where cattle picked up a scanty and miserable subsistence. The custody of the royal forest of the Stocket