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398 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
that, in his early clays in Skye, the winter mornings were enlightened
and enlivened Ijy the appearance of the fires of each family being
alight preparing the morning food in this manner. "When the
lairds established regnlar water mills on their estates a few cen-
turies ago, the millers were empowered by Acts of Parliament to
search out and break all the quern stones to be found ; and families
were only allowed to use querns and other means of grinding
their corn during stormy weather, or such causes as prevented their
access to the regular mill to which they were thirled. The ganger
was also a great enemy to the quern, for it was a source of trouble
to him, by enabling the native to prepare his malt for smuggling,
an art not altogether unknown in the present day, but rendered
easier from the removal of the malt duty.
The Government, kings, lairds, and miller seem to have
been all combined against the quern from very early times, for not
only in the following Act passed by King Alexander III. of Scotland,
viz.:— " That no man shall presume to grinde quheit, maisloch
or rj'e with hand mills except he be compellit by storm, and be in
lack of mylnes quhilk should grinde the samen, and in this case
if a man grindes at hand mylnes, he shall give the throtien measure
as multer ! and
if any man contraveins this, our prohibition, he
shall tyne his hand mills perpetually." Of course this was to
protect the lairds who had erected water mills, and to enable the
millers to pay their rents.
From the quern up to the laird's mill there Avere various
qualities of mills, and I have seen both in Shetland and in Lewis
the ui)right wheel at work, and I show you drawings of it. It is
called a " clappan," from the peculiar noise it makes as the stone I'e-
volves. The peculiarity, as you will observe, is that the wheel is
horizontal, and the axle upright, and that the upper stone of the
mill is fixed to the same axle as the wheel, exactly as if cart
wheels and axle had been set on one side, one wheel at the water,
the other at the grindstone. The house must be built over the
burn of course, so that the motion passes directly to the grinding
stones. The princij)l(; of the mill is exactly the same as any other.
It is the peculiar horizontal water wheel which marks it out from
the ordinary.
At the same cottage refcrrt'd to at Lochboisdale, I was amused
watching an old lady of nearly four score preparing her snuflf.
She took some leaves of ordinary tobacco, and having unrolled
them and dried them till they were (juite cris]), she put them in a
bowl, and with the round knob of the tongs she ground them to a
fine powder, and proceeded to regale herself with a pinch. I was