MACHRIHANISH
Sie,—Mr. lain Hamilton may set his mind at rest. Machrihanish is not spoiled. There have been coal millings near there for 450 Years (off and on) without marring the landscape ; and the new mine of the N.C.B. surpasses its predecessors in unobtrusiveness. There is no tall chimney and no black smoke. All is worked by electricity ; and slag- heaps are being kept low. The springy turf is as rich in thyme and little flowers as it was in Mr. Hamilton's boyhood. Atlantic rollers poise themselves and break along the sands. The golf-course is as grand as ever. The main difference is now the aerodrome. Mr. Hamilton can get there from Renfrew in half-au-hour.
It may be that, like Wordsworth, remembering his own boyhood, be is content that, in memory, he still " Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."
But it would be a sad pity if he or anyone should be misled by his 'melancholy and groundless imaginings about the fate of the Machri- banish of his dreams. " In Kintyre, in Argyllshire.' I agree with him,
against the Coal Board and the Post Office, that there is something wrong in the treatment of old district names:. Argyll proper has now to be called Mid-Argyll. Kintyre is in Argyllshire, not (I respectfully
suggest)in Argyll.—Yours faithfully, D. C. LusK.
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