Fife

Fife, a maritime, almost peninsular, Scottish county, washed on the N. for 21 miles by the Firth of Tay, on the E. for 24 by the German Ocean, and on the S. for 55 by the Firth of Forth. Its extreme length is 42 miles, its extreme breadth 21, and its area 513 sq. m. The surface offers a succession of cultivated valleys and hills, the most prominent eminences being the East and West Lomonds (1471 and 1713 feet), Largo Law (965), and Burntisland Bin (632). Almost the only streams are the Eden (30 miles long) and the Leven (16); whilst of seven lakelets the chief are Kilconquhar Loch (4 by 3 furlongs) and Lindores Loch (7 by 3). Fife rests on the Old Red Sandstone, with trap rocks in the north, carboniferous strata and trap in the south. Its mineral wealth includes coal (which is largely mined), shale, ironstone, limestone, and freestone. The soil is some of it very fertile, especially in the Howe of Fife, or Stratheden; and whilst barely one-fourth of the whole of Scotland is in cultivation, in Fife the proportion is nearly three-fourths. One-seventeenth is under wood. 'A gray cloth mantle with a golden fringe,' said James VI. of Fife, referring to the many towns and fishing-villages that skirt its ancient sea-margin—Inverkeithing, Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Dysart, Leven, Largo, Elie, St Monans, Pittenweem, the Anstruthers, Kilrenny, Crail, St Andrews, Ferryport, Newport, and Newburgh. Inland lie Cupar, Dunfermline, Falkland, Lochgelly, &c. Under those towns are noticed the manufactures, the chief antiquities, the illustrious natives, and the outstanding points in the peaceful history of the 'Kingdom of Fife,' which took so leading a part in the Scottish Reformation. Here, then, we need mention only the fine Romanesque church of Leuchars; the ruined abbeys of Balmerino and Lindores; Magus Muir, the scene of Sharp's murder; Cults, the birthplace of Wilkie; and Balcarres, of Lady Ann Barnard. Fife returns two members to parliament. It is seventeenth in size among Scottish counties, but fifth in rental, seventh in population—(1801) 93,743; (1841) 140,140; (1881) 171,931; (1891) 187,346—only 38,915 being rural. See the history by Sir Robert Sibbald (1710); E. J. G. Mackay, History of Fife and Kinross (1890 and 1896); A. H. Millar, Five Pictorial and Historical (2 vols. 1895). — The county has since 1759 given the title of Earl to the family of Duff. The sixth earl (born 1849) married in 1889 the Princess Louise of Wales, and became Marquis of Macduff and Duke of Fife.