Note 272 — Chapter VI · SCOTLAND.

A few years ago the late Mr. Rhind, of Sibster, left an estate worth more than 400l. per annum, to endow a Professorship of Archæology in Scotland, who was also to act as curator of the monuments themselves, but unfortunately left it encumbered by a life interest to a relative. Two years ago an attempt was made to get the Government to anticipate the falling in of the life interest, and appointing Mr. Stuart to the office at once. It was, perhaps, too much to expect so enlightened an act of liberality from a Government like ours. But their decision is to be regretted; not only because we may thereby lose altogether the services of the best qualified man in Scotland for the purpose, but more so because the monuments are themselves fast disappearing without any record of them being preserved. Agriculture is very merciless towards a big stone or a howe that stands in the way of the plough, and in so improving a country as Scotland, very little may remain for the next generation to record.