at first to Sir Walter Scott. His paper (1818) on The Parallel Roads of Glenroy, printed in vol. ix. of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, first drew attention to the phenomenon in question. In 1825 and 1827 he published two romances, Lochandhu and The Wolf of Badenoch. He became a frequent contributor to both Blackwood's Magazine and Tait's Magazine, and in 1830 he published An Account of the Great Floods in Morayshire in 1829 in the Province of Moray and adjoining Districts which he illustrated with engravings of his beloved but greatly damaged Highland retreat, Relugas house. About this time he was befriended by (and in 1829 took pains to promote) the Sobieski Stuart brothers, eventual publishers, in 1842, of the disputed Vestiarium Scoticum. Lauder agreed to transcribe the famous Cromarty MS which remained in the possession of his family until 1936, when it was presented to Queen Mary. It is now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. With it is a letter in which the donor states that the book was 'given' to Sir Thomas "by the Sobieski-Stuart brothers, Ian and Charles Edward". Sir Thomas and Sir Walter Scott corresponded on this MS at length. A full transcript of the Cromarty MS can be found in Stewart & Thompson's book, Scotland's Forged Tartans, which deals mainly with the Vestiarium and their opinions on it. According to the authoritative Complete Baronetage, vol.14, page 360, note a (on the authority of the late E.R. Stodart, Lyon Clerk Depute [1863-86]) 'he claimed to be descended from the family of Lauder of Bass, but utterly failed to prove such descent. Thereupon he set up a monument to the Lauder family in the Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, stating thereon the pedigree as he wished it to be'. Some subsequent works of Sir Thomas were Highland Rambles, with Long Tales to Shorten the Way (2 vols. 8 vo, 1837), Legendary Tales of the Highlands (3 vols. 12mo, 1841), Tour round the Coasts of Scotland (1842), and was asked by Queen Victoria to write the official history of her visit, entitled Memorial of the Royal Progress in Scotland (1843). Volume One of a Miscellany of Natural History, published in 1833, was also partly prepared by Lauder. An unfinished series of papers, written for Tait's Magazine shortly before his death, was published under the title Scottish Rivers, with a preface by John Brown, MD.,