CULROSS', a parliamentary and municipal burgh and seaport in a detached part of Perthshire, on the n. shore of the firth of Forth, 6 m. w. of Dunfermline, and 22 n.n.w. of EdinbUrgh. It is a place of great antiquity. As early as the 6th c., it was the seat of the monastery of St. Serf, who afterwards became the patron saint of the town, where his yearly festival was kept till about the close of the 18th century. Angus the Keldee, en Irish martyrologist, who wrote about 800 A. D., describes it as lying in Strathearn, betWeen the Ochils and the sea of Gindan, i.e., .the firth of Forth. It stands on the face of a hill rising from the shore. The parish church preserves some remains of the con ventual churelt of a Cistercian abbey;founded in 1217, on a commanding site in the higher the town. Close beside it is the flue old residence of C. abbey, founded b the Brutes of Carnock and Kinloss about the end of the 16th c., remodeled about the middle of the 17th c., and towards the end of the 18th occupied by the father of the
fate ldrd Duadonald, who here made experiments in extracting tar from coal for pre serving ships' bottoms, and gas for illuminating purposeS. At the e. end of the town are the ruins of a chapel, built about the beginning of the 16th c., in honor of St. Kenti gern Mingo, who is said to have been born here about the year 500, and to have been here educated by St. Serf. C. has various charitable institutions, and carries on some damask weaving. In the 1Gth c. it was famous for the manufacture of salt and the export of coal. Its once extensive shipping-traffic is now gone. Pop. '71, 467. It ieturns one member to parliament with Stirling, Dunfermline, Inverkeithing, and South Qucensferry. From James VI.'s time, up till the beginning of the century, coal-mines were worked here far under the firth of Forth.