AYRSHIRE is bounded on the north by Renfrewshire, on the east by Lanark and Dumfries shires, on the south by Kirkcudbright and Wigton shires, and on the west by the Irish Channel and the Frith of Clyde. Its length and breadth are variously stated, but it is generally estimated at about 60 miles long and from 26 to 30 broad, or extending between 90 and 100 miles along the western coast of Scotland, from the vicinity of Lochryan in Wigtonshire on the south, to Kelly Bridge, which separates it from Renfrewshire on the north. The area of the county is computed at about 1600 square miles, or 1,024,900 acres, of which 292,000 are cultivated, 300,000 uncultivated, and 432,000 unprofitable, the whole being ecclesiastically divided into 46 parishes. In former times the county was locally divided into the three districts of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, and these districts are still retained, though in a political view, and since the abolition of the hereditary jurisdictions, they are all amalgamated. Carrick on the south, containing about 450 square miles, is a wild and mountainous district throughout, comprising nine parishes ; Kyle, or Coil, in the centre, rough and hilly, but having large tracts of fertile land, 400 square miles, divided into 21 parishes; and Cunningham on the north, fertile and comparatively level, 250 square miles, and 16 parishes. The principal mountains are Knockdolian, a conical mountain near the coast in the southern part of the county, nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea; Carleton Hill, 1520 or 1554 feet; Knockdaw, 1554 feet; and Knocknorman, 1540 feet, all near Knockdolian; Benerard, 1440 feet; Cairn-table, in the eastern part of the county, 1650; Blackside, in the parish of Sorn, 1560 feet; Misty Law, 1240 feet; and Brown Carrick Hill, nearly 950 feet. The only rivers of note are the Ayr, which is the largest; the Garnoch, the Rye Water, the Irvine, the Girvan, the Stinchar, and the Doon, celebrated in Scotish song. The fresh-water lakes are Loch Doon, from which the Doon issues, about six miles in length, Loch Finloch, Loch Breelen, Loch Lure, and Lochnecair in the parish of Straiton; Loch Spaig, Loch Mochrum, Loch Martnaham, Loch Fergus, and Loch Broun, all of which abound with trout. The minerals of Ayrshire are numerous and valuable. In the county are inexhaustible fields of coal, freestone, ironstone, ores of lead and copper, black-lead, gypsum, marl, and marble. There are several mineral springs. Harbours and railroads have been formed to carry on the coal export trade, which is rapidly increasing. The agricultural state of the county is justly celebrated, and presents a striking contrast to what it was in the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was in the most wretched condition. At and long previous to that period, there was scarcely a practicable road, the farm-houses were little better than hovels, and the lands overrun with weeds and rushes. The arable farms were small, as the tenants had no stock for larger occupations of land, the tenures bad, and the tenants harassed by numerous vexatious services to the landlord. Little animal food was used by farmers, except a portion salted at Martinmas for winter's stock; and even in the town of Ayr, then containing from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants, not more than 50 head of cattle were slaughtered annually, being scarcely one a week, at present perhaps 50 are slaughtered in one week. The county is now well cultivated, drained, and inclosed, producing luxuriant crops; the tenantry are comfortable, and many of them wealthy; great numbers of horses, cattle, and sheep, are reared; the Ayrshire dairies are celebrated throughout the kingdom, and the prejudice against breeding swine is abandoned. The moors abound with game of all kinds, and the rivers with trout and salmon; rabbits, which are perhaps more numerous than in any other county in Scotland, are bred chiefly for their fur; and the common fowls are reared at every farm-house and cottage. In former times there were extensive forests in Ayrshire, and these, which were all cut down, are succeeded by numerous plantations, belts, and clumps of every variety of trees. The fisheries along the coasts are valuable, and followed with great industry and enterprise. The manufactures of Ayrshire are most important and annually extending, an impulse being given by the vicinity to Glasgow and Paisley. The woollen manufactures have been long established; and are now carried on in various parts of the county by the aid of machinery. Kilmarnock was early noted for its bonnets, serges, and cools ; carpets, various kinds of cloths, and stockings, are made; the linen, thread, and silk manufacture, has been introduced; there are several large cotton-works, especially those at Catrine, the weaving of muslins prevails all over the county; bleaching, as connected with the cotton trade, is extensively carried on; and Ayrshire needlework is held in great repute among ladies for its elegance and beauty. There are numerous extensive tanneries; pottery for domestic purposes is made, as are also kelp, soda, and salt, along the shore. There are iron-foundries in many places, and the iron-works at Muirkirk are among the most important in the kingdom. Ayrshire contains several flourishing towns, sea-ports, and villages. It contains the two royal burghs of Ayr and Irvine, which, in conjunction with Campbeltown, Inverary, and Oban, in Argyleshire, return one member to the Imperial Parliament. The county returns one member; the constituency in 1838 was 4308. In 1831, the population was 145,055 ; inhabited houses, 19,001; families, 30,501. The valued rent in 1674 was L.191,605 Scots; the annual value of property in 1815 was L.409,983. The county contains numerous monuments and remains of antiquity, which are noticed in the accounts of the parishes; many ruined castles, strongholds, and religious houses, and many fine seats belonging to the nobility and gentry, among wliich may be noticed Culzean Castle (Marquis of Ailsa), Fullarton House (Duke of Portland), London Castle (Marquis of Hastings), Dumfries House (Marquis of Bute), Eglinton Castle (Earl of Eglinton), Kelburn House and Kilbirnie (Earl of Glasgow), Stair House (Earl of Stair), Kilkerran (Fergusson, Bart.), Barskimming (Miller, Bart.), Auchincruive, Dalquharran, Aiichinleck, and others too numerous to mention in this outline, but which are noticed under the several parishes. This county was originally inhabited by the British tribe called the Damnii, and at a later period, the descendants of the Scots who came over from Ireland to the peninsula of Cantyre, and thence crossed into Ayrshire, mingled with that tribe. In the eighth century the Saxon kings of Northumberland obtained possession of the country, and up to the twelfth century the people spoke the Gaelic language, their district forming part of Galloway. In the twelfth century, during the reign of David I., the introduction of colonists from England brought in new principles, customs, and laws; but the change was gradual, for the inhabitants held out in favour of the Gaelic language till the end of the sixteenth century. Hugh Morville came into Scotland under David I., was made Constable of the kingdom, and acquired the whole district of Cunningham. Many vassals from England settled in this part of the county, from whom descended several families. In addition to these were the Montgomerys from Shropshire, the Kennedys from Ireland, the Campbells from Argyleshire, the Boyds, Hamiltons, Cochranes, Colvilles, Kers, Dunlops, Crichtons, Dalrymples, and other prevailing families, not to mention the numerous names beginning with the patronymic Mac peculiar to Ayrshire. The county was often exposed to invasions by the Danes and Norwegians, but their defeat at Largs, in 1263, completely drove them out of Scotland, and they never returned. It afterwards became the scene of perpetual turmoil during the wars carried on by the English to subdue Scotland; the exploits of Sir William Wallace in the county are duly recorded in history ; and Robert Bruce, the great restorer of the Scotish monarchy, was a native, the earldom of Carrick having come by marriage into his family, which was merged in the Crown, when he obtained undisputed possession of the throne. For centuries afterwards Ayrshire was distracted by the family feuds and barbarities of the Boyds and Dalrymples, the Campbells and Colvilles, the rival houses of Eglinton and Glencairn, arising chiefly from disputes regarding hereditary jurisdictions, aggressions, and personal animosities ; but the most turbulent of all were the Kennedys, whose feuds and crimes are conspicuous in the history of the county. At the commencement of the Reformation the Protestant doctrines were readily embraced by the people, and were zealously inculcated by the celebrated George Wishart, called the Martyr. Ayrshire appears, indeed, to have been the county in which the doctrines of the Reformation were first promulgated; the Lollards of Kyle, as the persons of that district were designated, who were tinged with these sentiments, were called to account before the termination of the fifteenth century, and Knox describes Kyle as " an old receptacle of the servants of God." Before that era, and until the Revolution of 1688, the county formed a part of the archbishopric of Glasgow. During the troubles of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of Ayrshire became noted for their zealous support of the Solemn League and Covenant, and the character of the people, even at the present day, indicates their descent from the rigid Presbyterians of the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. So obnoxious were the people to the Government after the Restoration, that the Highland clans were brought in to live at free quarters among them; many were put to death, and the moors, mosses, and fastnesses of the county contain several monuments to their memory. The inhabitants of Ayrshire rejoiced at the Revolution of 1688, but the principles on which the Presbyterian Church was established, without any reference to, or rather in opposition to, those of the Covenant, appear to have dissatisfied numbers, and the party called Cameronians have been always numerous. Dissenters from the Establishment have rapidly increased. Referring to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Mr Aiton, in his able work on the Agriculture of the County of Ayr, thus accounts for the indolence and ignorance of the then tenantry :—" The generality of the tenants were altogether ignorant of the fundamental principles of agriculture, and of the laws of nature on which those principles are founded. Information on these subjects was not then relished. An extensive acquaintance with the mysterious, abstruse, and disputed points of systematic divinity, was the species of knowledge generally sought after, and to which the greatest fame was attached. The people had been taken from the plough, and other peaceful labours of the field, to assist the Reformers in demolishing churches and hunting down the Popish clergy, who were the best farmers then in Scotland, and it was not till near the end of the eighteenth century that they returned to their proper occupation. Their ambition was not to improve the soil, but to reform the Church; not to destroy weeds and brambles, but to root out heresy; not to break up the stubborn soil, but to tread down the Whore of Babylon and the Man of Sin.—The selling of meal by the weight instead of measure was, when first introduced, considered a dreadful schism; and the introduction of winnowing machines was testified against from some of the pulpits, under the denomination of Deil's Wind." A very different state of things, it need hardly be added, now exists. " It was," says Mr Robert Chambers, " on account of some attempts at reforming and improving the domestic condition of the farmers of Ayrshire, that the unfortunate Earl of Eglinton acquired his unpopularity, and was so little lamented at his death. 'He's an unco fashious man, that Yerll o' Eglintoune,' they would sometimes say to each other; ' he's aye plan-plannin', and aye change-changing; and ae way or another he's never aff our tap. Od, I wiss he mayna meet wi' his merchant some day.' When eventually shot by a poacher, it was very commonly remarked that ' he had lang been fey, and lang been working for a mischief, and noo he had got it.'" One of the great impulses to agriculture, if not the chief, was the establishment of Douglas, Heron, and Company's Bank at Ayr, which, though ill-conducted in all its departments, and eventually disastrous to many individuals, was the cause of much prosperity to the county, and excited a spirit of activity which has since been maintained. It only remains to be added, in this sketch of Ayrshire, that it is in a peculiar sense the country of Burns; its streams, valleys, glens, and localities, are immortalized by his muse ; its inhabitants are characterized by a degree of masculine strength and stature superior to those of most other counties, and the beauty of the Ayrshire women has long been proverbial, and celebrated in song. All its great families can boast of relatives famous in the literature and history of their country; distinguished warriors, statesmen, lawyers, philosophers, and authors. The island of Little Cumbrae belongs to Ayrshire; the other Cumbrae is in the county of Bute. Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of Scotland, circa 1841