appears to have been used as a smuggling route. Punishment: It is a popularly held myth that the Nor' Loch was the site of 'witch ducking' in Edinburgh. 'Witch ducking' or 'the swimming test' was employed by witchcraft prosecutors in some areas of Europe as a method of identifying whether or not a suspect was guilty of witchcraft. However, according to the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft there is little evidence that 'witch ducking' was utilised as a means of identifying witches in Scottish witchcraft trials. However, in 1685 the law of Scotland outlawed drowning as a form of execution. Before then many lives were taken. On one day in 1624, eleven women were drowned. Four years later, George Sinclair confessed to committing incest with his two sisters. All three were sentenced to death, but it was said that the clergy commuted the sentence on the younger sister. Sinclair and his older sister were placed in a large chest with holes drilled in it and thrown into the loch to drown. Two centuries later, in 1820, the chest was rediscovered by workmen digging a drain near the Wellhouse Tower of the Castle. James Skene of Rubislaw, who was present at the work in the gardens, reported that the skeleton of a tall man was found between those of two women. Later 19th-century accounts report only two skeletons being found in the chest. Draining of the Nor Loch began at the eastern end to allow construction of the North Bridge. Draining of the western end was undertaken 1813 to 1820, under supervision by the engineer James Jardine to enable the creation of Princes Street Gardens. For several decades after draining of the Loch began, townspeople continued to refer to the area as the Nor Loch. The Wellhouse Tower The Nor Loch was never a source of drinking water, and indeed was probably highly polluted, being largely stagnant and used as a dumping ground for rubbish over and above being the termination point of many of the Old Town's open sewers. However, there was a drinking water source at its edge. The wellhouse tower was built in 1362 and had two functions: bridging the small gap in the city fortifications between Edinburgh Castle and the Nor Loch; and protecting and covering a well going down to natural ground water level below the loch. The two storey structure was a drinking water source for