Excerpt from Souvenir of the Opening of the North British Station Hotel, Edinburgh, 15th October, 1902: Contents, Old and New Edinburgh, North British Station Hotel, North British RailwayNew Edinburgh. He feels as if some magician's wand had smitten the rock, and opened the way into the heart of an enchanted city. On the one hand, the houses of Auld Reekie rise high and higher as they climb the steep ridge from the Abbey to the Castle, until they seem to beetle, like tall fantastic cliffs, over the head of the traveller, on the other, from a not less noble vantage-ground of rock and Slope, shine the towers and pillars and fair palace fronts of Modern Athens.Nature and art, beauty and utility, the venerable and the modern, are found in strange and not inharmonious conjunction in this Valley of the Winds, where the North British Railway has planted its head-quarters. Green banks and braes, wooded lawns and parterres of ¿owers divide the space with platforms and signal boxes, the living rock rises from the very margin of the railway track. The visitor finds himself at the root and foundation of the Old city as well as in the centre of its modern life. He can peruse its historic and prehistoric records written On its stones, or plunge into the current of its present-day fashion and traffic without stirring far from the spot where his train has set him down. The Nor' Loch Edinburgh's Old moat of defence, originally formed to keep the Southerner at a respectful distance - has been drained in order that he may have easy entrance and exit. Trains move out and in, and children play, where the citizens of earlier generations boated and fished, and drowned witches and malefactors. A channel has been made for commerce under the Earthen Mound - the mound Of shot rubbish of Old Edinburgh - by which, and by the North Bridge, it first stepped across the valley to take possession of the site of the New Town. The intrusive railway brushes the base Of the Castle rock and burrows below the West Kirk churchyard on its way to Glasgow and to the Forth Bridge.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.