CLACKMANNANSHIRE, one of the counties of Scotland, situated between 56° 5' and 56° 14' north latitude, and between 3° 33' and 3° 56'west longitude from Greenwich, is bounded on the south and south-west by the river Forth, which separates it from Stirlingshire, by Fifeshire on the south-east, and in every other quarter by Perthshire. It is the smallest county in Scotland, being littje more than eight miles in length, and, at a medium, six miles and a half in breadth; thus extending over fifty-two square miles, or 33,280 acres. But its value is much greater than in the ratio of its extent. About three fourths of its surface are under cultivation, a greater proportion, with the [7:6:720]exception of East Lothian, than that of any other county of Scotland; and it abounds in the useful minerals, which have long been wrought upon a very extensive scale.

Between the Ochil Hills, which form the northern boundary of this district, ι and the rich alluvial tracts on the banks of the Forth, which winds along in a very irregular line on its opposite extremity, there is a considerable variety of surface. An elevated ridge rises on the west, and, running through the middle of the county, spreads itself gradually till it reaches the eastern boundary, skirting the alluvial or carse lands on the south, and the vale of Dovan on the north. And still farther to the north, the Oehil Hills, the highest of which, Beneloch, in the parish of Tillicoultry, rises nearly 2500 feet above the level of the sea, form a very picturesque landscape, having their generally verdant surface broken by bold projecting rocks, and deeply indented ravines, the beds of many a pellucid stream, with coppice and thriving plantations occasionally interspersed. These hills protect the lower grounds from the piercing winds which blow from the north and north-east, and give Clackmannanshire some advantage, in regard to climate, over the adjoining counties.

The only streams worthy of notice which traverse this county are the Dovan and the Black Dovan, or, as they are often called, the North Devon and South Devon. The Dovan rises in the county of Perth, and, descending with impetuosity from the Ochils, where its course is to the east, makes a very sharp turn towards the west, and, proceeding placidly in that direction through the pleasant vale already mentioned, falls into the Forth at the village of Cambus. Exclusive of its windings, the course of this river is more than twenty-six miles, though the distance in a direct line from its source to its embouchure does not exceed six miles. It has long been remarkable for the deep and dark chasms which it has worn in the rocks, and through which it flows in the earlier part of its course, being in some places hardly visible. The Devil’s Mill, so called from the supposed resemblance of the sound of the water to that of machinery; the Rumbling 13 ridge, a very narrow and unguarded pass across a chasm ninety feet deep; and the Cauldron Lynn, where the water is perpetually agitated in the immense cauldron-like excavations which it has formed in the rock, have been frequently visited by the lovers of natural scenery. Though this river is liable to be suddenly swelled by rains, and frequently descends in torrents overflowing its banks, it is in general of no great depth, but might be rendered navigable for small vessels at a moderate expense, to the effect of bringing 10,000 acres of coal within reach of water-carriage.

The Black Dovan has its source in the county of Fife, flows westward in a direction nearly parallel to the Dovan, and falls into the Forth near Clackmannan. This river is extensively employed in turning mills and coal engines, its whole course being over coal strata. In a dry season it is an inconsiderable stream, the greater part of its waters being then collected into reservoirs for the supply of machinery.

The Forth is navigable as far as it forms the boundary of this county. Ships of 500 tons burden run up as far as Alloa. Its windings, or links as they are called, are very remarkable. The distance from the quay of Alloa to that of Stirling, measured in the middle of the stream, is seventeen miles, and to the bridge of Stirling it is nineteen and a half, whereas the distance by land from the latter place to Alloa does not exceed seven miles. A little above Alloa there are three islets in the river, the largest containing more than seventy acres. A remarkable ledge of rock stretches across the Forth below the two smaller islets, which obstructs the passage of vessels of more than sixty tons burden, and where it is fordable at low water of spring tides. The breadth at this place being only about 500 yards, it was long since proposed to throw a bridge over it, the expense of which was estimated at L.70,000. Mr Rennie, the celebrated engineer, made a survey with a view to a bridge at the Alloa ferry, which he declared to be practicable at an expense of L. 150,000; a work which has never been attempted. The passage, however, has of late been improved by means of new piers and a steam boat. The estuary of the Forth, for several miles above and below Clackmannan, exhibits a singular phenomenon in its tides, which rise there from sixteen to twenty-two feet. During neap tides in good weather, and sometimes also during spring tides, if the weather be uncommonly fine, after the water has flowed for three hours, it retires in an hour and a half, nearly as far as the line from which it had begun t□ flow, but returns immediately, and, in an hour and a half more, reaches the same height it had attained before. This flux and reflux takes place both in the flood and ebb tides, so that double the usual number of tides occur in this part of the river. In very boisterous weather, however, these lecky tides, as they are called by sailors, are not regular, the water then only rising without any perceptible current, as if two tides were acting against each other.

The soils of the arable land of Clackmannanshire arc in general productive and well cultivated; though the greater part of the elevated range which is interposed between the earse lands on the Forth, and the vale of Dovan at the base of the Oehils on the north, consists of inferior soils, often incumbent on an impervious clay. All the crops commonly raised in Scotland grow luxuriantly on either side of this tract, which also contains within itself a considerable proportion of valuable soil. From the rental of the abbacy of Cambuskenneth, founded in 1147, it appears, that wheat was cultivated on the links of the Forth at a very early period; yet it is certain that fifty years ago fields of this grain were only occasionally to be met with in the county. As a proof how early and well the earse lands near Alloa had been cultivated, it may be mentioned, that more than a century ago some farms in that quarter paid as much grain and 6ther kinds of produce, in name of rent, as the present money-rent of similar soils would purchase at the average prices of the last twenty-five years. The farms would be thought small in other counties; few of the arable ones exceeding 200 Scotch or 250 English acres, and the far greater number being below 100 acres. The rent of the county was returned to the collector of the property-tax for the year ending in April 1811, at L.32,047. 12s., so that, after making allowance for that part of the surface which is covered by water, or otherwise altogether unproductive, every acre must have paid at least 20s. upon an average of all soils and situations. At the same time, the rent of the houses was stated at L.2827. 5s. The old valuation, by which the land-tax and county-rates are apportioned, is L.26,482.10s. 10d. Scots, or L.2206. 17s. 7d. sterling, of which somewhat more than a third belongs to estates held under entail. The richest earse land under current leases now (1832) lets for three bolls a Scotch acre, half wheat and half barley, payable by the fiars, and in the measure of the county. Good carse land commonly rents at three bolls an acre, one of which is wheat, one barley, and one oats. The first effective thrashing machine in Scotland was constructed at Kilbagie, in the parish of Clackmannan, in 1787, by Mr George Meikle, the son of its celebrated inventor; and the last one, it is believed, at which old Meikle himself worked, is on the estate of the Earl of Mar, near Alloa. One of the greatest disadvantages which the agriculture of this district labours under is the want of limestone, of which, however, very large quantities are [7:6:721] brought from Dunbar and other places on the Forth, and afterwards calcined in the county, where coal is always plentiful and cheap. Limeshells are also imported to a considerable extent from the Earl of Elgin’s works in Fife.

This small county is rich in minerals. Silver, copper, lead, iron-ore (Jiaematites), cobalt, and arsenic, have all been discovered in the Ochil Mountains, between Airthry and Dollar; but, after having been wrought for a time with little success, the labour was discontinued. The operations, however, were not conducted upon an extensive scale; in no instance did the miners penetrate below the level of the plain from which the Ochils rise; and it is still believed that these hills abound in valuable metallic veins, ready to reward more skilful and enterprising adventurers. The hazard would be in working for silver, as it is found chiefly in detached nodules. Ironstone is wrought to a considerable extent for the Devon iron-works, in the parish of Clackmannan. It is found either in strata, or in detached oblate balls, imbedded in the schist, and yields from 25 to 30 per cent, of iron. That obtained from the mine now opened at Vicar’s Bridge, near Dollar, affords, it is said, above 40 per cent. The quantity of ironstone extracted in 1830 was 14,500 tons.

The Abbey Craig, near Stirling, a great mass of greenstone rock, crystallized in the internal structure, and rudely columnar in its external appearance, deserves to be particularly noticed, in this view of Clackmannanshire, from its having afforded a very useful substitute, in the manufacture of flour, for the French bur-stones, which it was so difficult to procure during the late war. This discovery was made by a miller of the name of James Brownhill, then employed at the Alloa mills. Several hundreds of these millstones are now working both in England and Scotland, and are found to be in some respects superior to the burs. The Society for the Encouragement of Arts in London presented this ingenious person with a hundred guineas for his discovery, after they had received the most satisfactory proofs of its great importance.

Coal has been wrought for two hundred years in this county. The quantity at present annually obtained may be estimated at 160,000 tons, of which a great part is shipped for Leith, Dunbar, Tay water, and foreign ports. In the scale of working, the collieries stand thus: 1. Alloa; 2. Sauchy; 3. Clackmannan; 4. Dollar; 5. Tillicoultry; 6. Kennet. It is all either cubical or slate coal, both being often found in the same bed, of an open burning quality; and no smithy or caking coal has yet been discovered. The thinnest seam which has been wrought is twenty-seven inches thick; and in a depth of 105 fathoms there are nine scams of more than this thickness. The pit opened this year (1832) at Hill End, near Clackmannan, contains a seam six feet eight inches in thickness. The strata which compose the coal-field are varieties of sandstone, argillaceous schistus, fire-clay, and argillaceous ironstone. Limestone is found among the lowest veins of the coal strata. Organic remains of shell-fish and plants abound in them; and of the latter, many are of a kind now found only in the equatorial regions. Carbonic acid gas, termed choke-damp, is the most abundant of the noxious vapours found in the coal mines of this field. Hydrogen gas, or inflammable air, was never known here till lately, and it is still in small quantity. The great coal-field of Scotland, which passes in a diagonal line from the mouths of the Forth and Tay to the Irish Sea, is bounded by the Ochils. No coal has been found to the north of them, excepting at Brora, in the county of Sutherland.

Machinery for drawing water from the mines was constructed and much improved in this county, before the invention of the steam-engine. The Alloa colliery is drain ed by an overshot water-wheel, 30 feet diameter, which lifts the water from the depth of 300 feet. The Sauchy collieries are drained by powerful steam-engines; that employed by the Devon Company is capable of raising 10,000,000 gallons of water in twenty-four hours, from the depth of 280 feet. At the Alloa colliery there is an improved cast-iron railway, of about two and a half miles in length, upon which a horse takes down eight waggons with as many tons of coals. The general price paid for working great coal is from 2s. to 3s. per ton; and the selling price on the hill 6s. 8d., which is said to yield but a very small return to the coal-master.

At the Alloa colliery the workmen have for a great number of years had a court, composed of five of their own number, appointed annually by the proprietor of the works. By this court all differences amongst themselves are settled. The highest fine exacted is half a guinea, and all the fines are put into a general fund for the support of the poor.

Under the head of manufactures, the distilleries of this county form by far the most prominent and considerable branch. In this small district there were, twenty years ago, no fewer than six large distilleries. Of these, Kilbagie and Kennetpans paid to government an excise-duty greater than the land-tax of Scotland; the former alone ξ>aying no less at one time than about half a million sterling. 3 reviously to 1788, the quantity of grain annually consumed at Kilbagie exceeded 60,000 bolls (45,000 quarters); while 7000 cattle and 2000 swine were fattened upon the grains and dreg. The saving in the stock of food for man, effected by the stoppage of the distilleries, is therefore much less considerable than has been imagined; an acre of barley used in distillation yielding nearly as much animal food as an acre of middling pasture. It is understood that cattle may be fattened in a complete manner, in the proportion of two, of 50 stones avoirdupois each, for every gallon of a still, when working from grain; affording the means, at the same time, of enriching the soil for future crops, by the abundance and good quality of the manure they produce. The effects which distilleries produce on the morals of the neighbourhood is another question.

The other manufactures of Clackmannanshire, though numerous, are not conducted upon so very extensive a scale. At the Devon iron-works, already noticed, about sixty tons of pig iron are prepared weekly, only a small part of which is used by the foundery at these works. In the parish of Dollar, on the banks of the Dovan, a bleachfield was established in 1787, of which the water and the machinery are excellent. The cloth bleached here consists chiefly of the fine table linen manufactured at Dunfermline. There is a very complete set of corn-mills at Alloa, and there are mills for various purposes in several parts of the county. In the same town, and in the neighbourhood, there are five breweries, a glass work, a copper work, a rope and sail manufactory, a tannery, a tile and brick work; and this year (1832) a steam-engine manufactory has been commenced.

The port of Alloa is well situated for commerce, and has a substantial well-built quay, and, a little above the harbour, a dry dock capable of receiving vessels of large burden; the depth of the water at spring-tides being sixteen feet, and the width of the gates thirty-four and a half. There is a custom-house here, which comprehends the ports of Stirling and Kincardine, and Clackmannan Pow, and at which 155 vessels were registered in 1831, carrying 19,000 tons, and navigated by 1020 men. There are cleared outwards annually, on an average, from 1100 to 1200 vessels, carrying 55,000 tons, and employing about 3300 seamen; and inwards, about 700 vessels, carrying 32,000 tons, and 1800 men. The principal exports are [7:6:722]coals, about 65,000 tons, pig and cast iron, alcs for London, and British spirits. In 1830, 430,000 gallons of spirits were shipped for the English market; and in the same year, the excise duties, customs, and taxes received in Alloa, and paid into the exchequer, amounted to L.244,097. The annual imports consist, for the most part, of grain for the distilleries and breweries, of which a great proportion is barley from the county of Norfolk, and goods from Leith, Glasgow, Greenock, and London. Timber, iron, and other commodities, arc occasionally imported from the Baltic. The establishment of packets betwixt Alloa and Leith is likely to prove of much benefit to this district, from the low rates at which goods are transported. A most convenient and expeditious conveyance for passengers, by means of steam-boats, has been recently introduced, with great success, between Newhaven and Alloa, and other places on the Forth.

Among the antiquities of this county may be mentioned the ruins of Castle Campbell, originally called Castlc Gloom, in a singularly wild and almost inaccessible situation, within a recess of the mountains, above the village of Dollar. The period of its erection and its early history are unknown. It became the property of the Argyll family in 1465, from whom it derived its present name, and was the ordinary residence of Archibald earl of Argyll at the time of the Reformation. In this stronghold John Knox found a temporary retreat. In 1644 it was burned by Montrose, and since that time it has been suffered to remain in ruins. The tower of Alloa, built prior to the year 1300, the residence of the Erskines, earls of Mar, and now belonging to the representative of that noble family, is in good preservation. -The walls are eleven feet in thickness, and the highest turret is eighty-nine feet above the ground. The tower of Clackmannan was long the scat of the chief of the Bruces after the failure of the male line. There is a charter, dated the 9th of December 1359, quoted by Douglas, in which Dgvid II. grants to Sir Robert Bruce, whom he there styles his dearly beloved re-∣ lation, the castle and manor of Clackmannan, with divers other lands within the county. Since the death of Henry Bruce of Clackmannan, in 1772, leaving no male representative, it has been made a question whether the Earl of Elgin or Bruce of Kennet be now the chief of that royal race.

Clackmannanshire sends a member to parliament, conjunctly with the county of Kinross. By the reform bill, there are annexed to Clackmannanshire, for the purposes of election, the parishes of Culross and Tullyallan, formerly comprehended in the county of Perth; Alva, formerly belonging to Stirling; and the Perthshire portion of Logie. This arrangement will increase the population to 21,392 souls. Clackmannanshire thus comprehends eleven parishes, the constituency of which, as determined by the sheriff, is as follows :—
[table]

There is no royal burgh in this county. Clackmannan, which gives its name to the county, is the only town in it besides Alloa deserving of notice.

There is no legal assessment here for the poor. The total number of poor in 1812 was 193, who received L.677, or nearly L.3. 10s. each, from interest of money, collections at the church doors, and voluntary contributions by the heritors and inhabitants. The population of Clackmannanshire in 1811, 1821, and 1831, is exhibited in the following abstracts:—
[table]