Edinburghshire

Edinburghshire, or MIDLOTHIAN, a Scottish county, extending 12 miles along the low southern shore of the Firth of Forth. The greatest length from east to west is 36 miles; its greatest breadth, 24; and its area, 367 sq. m. The surface has a general southward rise to the Pentlands, culminating in Scald Law (1898 feet), and the Moorfoot Hills, whose highest point is Blackhope Scar (2136). Intermediate eminences are Arthnr's Seat (822), Blackford Hill (500), Corstorphine Hill (520), Craiglockhart (550), the Braid Hills (698), and the Dalmahoy Crags (800). The streams—Esk, Water of Leith, and Almond—all flow to the Forth, with the exception of Gala Water, which runs to the Tweed. The geology is most interesting, the rocks of the Moorfoots being Lower Silurian; of the Pentlands, Upper Silurian and Lower Old Red Sandstone, the latter consisting chiefly of volcanic rocks; and of the plains, Carboniferous, with contemporaneous and subsequent or intrusive igneous rocks. Coal has been largely mined for nearly three centuries; and ironstone, oil-shale, and fireclay are also raised. There are large quarries of sandstone at Craigleith (q.v.) and elsewhere. Agriculture is highly advanced, though only 57 per cent. of the entire area is in cultivation. Near Edinburgh are large market-gardens and sewage-meadows; and on the Esk and the Water of Leith there are paper-mills. The county returns one member to parliament, and contains the parliamentary burghs of Edinburgh, Leith, Portobello, and Musselburgh, besides the police-burghs of Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg, Loanhead, and Penicuik. Pop. (1801) 122,597; (1841) 225,454; (1881) 389,164; (1891) 434,159. Midlothian's four battlefields are Roslin, Pinkie, Carberry Hill, and Rullion Green; its antiquities are the Catstane, the Roman remains of Inveresk and Cramond, Roslin Chapel, and the castles of Borthwick (q.v.), Crichton, Craigmillar, &c. It is rich, too, in fine and interesting mansions, described in Small's Castles and Mansions of the Lothians (2 vols. 1883).