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Updated: May 6, 2025
Meanwhile, Sir William Jardine has published an elegant book, containing a series of drawings, in which the slabs of Corncockle are truthfully represented.
Since then, examples of similar markings have been found in several other parts of Europe, and a still greater number in America. Dumfriesshire is still the principal locality of these curious objects in our island; and they are found not only in the original spot the quarry of Corncockle Muir, but in another quarry at Craigs, near the town of Dumfries.
The sandstone slabs of Corncockle, lying in their original place with a dip of about 33 degrees to the westward, and separating with great cleanness and smoothness, present impressions of such liveliness, that there is no possibility of doubt as to their being animal foot-tracks, and those of the tortoise family.
Corncockle Moor, in its dreariness, loneliness, and wildness, now hung out a vast curtain, which Joanna and Conny were skirting under the golden decline of day, not so far from the spot where the little group of men had gathered on the autumn morning, and the two sharp, short cracks, and the little curl of blue smoke had indicated where one life had gone out, and another was blasted in a single second.
He had sat down in the intense chill and dim darkness to recover himself; no way forewarned, "simply because he was on Corncockle Moor, so near home," on a September night. He had sunk down further and further, until the stealthy foe sprang upon him and held him fast the sleep from which there is so tardy an awakening. Joanna dared not leave the faint, vital spark to smoulder down or leap out.
Also in the purple marls of Corncockle Muir near Dumfries, very distinct footprints of reptiles occur, originally referred to the Trias, but shown by Mr. Binney in 1856 to be Permian. No bones of the animals which they represent have yet been discovered.
She accepted the fate or superstition which linked her with her father's sorrow; she was content, she thought, to suffer the dregs of his act with him; she wished she could suffer for him; the connexion had indeed a peculiar charm for her enthusiasm and generosity, like her admiration of this Corncockle Moor.
In a quarry of this formation, at Corncockle Muir, in Dumfriesshire, where the slabs incline at an angle of thirty-eight degrees, the vestiges of an animal supposed to have been a tortoise are distinctly traced up and down the slope, as if the creature had had occasion to pass backwards and forwards in that direction only, possibly in its daily visits to the sea.
Here you may walk many miles and even wait several harvests to see a corncockle. The thistledown floats; and see, yonder the white balls are rolling before the gentle air along the very tips of the bronzing wheat-ears. By the hedge the straggling stalks of St. John's wort lift the yellow petals dotted with black specks above the bunches of grass.
Ample collections of them have been made by Sir William Jardine, the famed naturalist, who happens to be proprietor of Corncockle Quarry, and by Mr Robert Harkness of Dumfries, a young geologist, who seems destined to do not a little for the illustration of this and kindred subjects.
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