2 FEBRUARY 1884, Page 22

Wallace's Description of Orkney. (W. Brown.)—Mr. James Wallace was Minister

of Lady Kirk, in Orkney ; thence he was translated to Kirkwall, in 1672. He wrote this description of the islands, their history, and the natural phenomena which they present, in 1688, dying in the same year. There is much curious information in it, which it was quite worth while to rescue from oblivion. Among other things, we see that the fluke in sheep is no more than other evils a new thing under the ann. Mr. Wallace says :—" The sheep usually die of a disease called the sheepdead,' which is occasioned by great quantities of little animals, like to flonks ' of an inch long. which are engendered in the liver. I put one of them in a micro- scope, and found it like a little flonk wanting thins."