ANNAN  , a royal. municipal and

police burgh of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, on the Annan, nearly 2 M. from its mouth, 15 M. from Dumfries by the Glasgow & South-Western railway . It has a station also on the Caledonian railway company's branch line from Kirtlebridge to Brayton (Cumberland), which crosses the Solway Firth at Seafield by a viaduct, 13 m. long, constructed of iron pillars girded together by poles, driven through the sand and gravel into the underlying bed of sandstone . Annan is a well-built town, red sandstone being the material mainly used . Among its public buildings is the excellent academy of which Thomas Carlyle was a pupil . The river Annan is crossed by a stone bridge of three arches dating from 1824, and by a railway bridge . The Harbour Trust, constituted in 1897, improved the shippingaccommodation, and vessels of 300 tons approach close to the town . The principal industries include cotton and rope manufactures, bacon-curing, distilling, tanning, shipbuilding, sand-stone quarrying, nursery-gardening and salmon-fishing . Large marine engineering works are in the vicinity . Annan is a burgh of considerable afftiquity . Roman remains exist in the neighbour-hood, and the Bruces, lords of Annandale, the Baliols, and the Douglases were more or less closely associated with it . During the period of the Border lawlessness the inhabitants suffered repeatedly at the hands of moss-troopers and through the feuds of rival families, in addition to the losses caused by the English and Scots wars . Edward Irving was a native of the town .

With Dumfries,

Kirkcudbright, Lochmaben and Sanquhar, Annan unites in sending one member to parliament . Annan Hill commands a beautiful prospect . Population (1901) 5805 .