ABBS, St, a promontory on the eastern coast of Scotland, Lat. 55. 55. N. Long. 2. 8. 30. W. The shore around is steep and rocky, and there is a depth of 30 or 40 fathoms water not far from land. The tide runs by it with a strong current, and a little wind causes a great rolling sea.
ABBUTALS signify the buttings or boundings of land towards any point. Limits were anciently distinguished by artificial hillocks, which were called botemines; and hence butting. In a description of the site of land, the sides on the breadth are more properly adjacentes, and those terminating the length are abbutantes; which, in old surveys, were sometimes expressed by capitare, to head; whence abbutals are now called head-lands.