thence up the romantic dean in front of Twizell House to the moors in which it has taken its origin. Descending from these heath-clad heights westerly, we reach the Till at its junction with the Roddam,-a burn which conducts us through corn and pasture lands partly, but chiefly through a deep and extensive ravine, into the recesses of the Cheviot hills. These constitute our extreme western boundary. They lead, in a beautiful series of rounded summits, to the hills above Yetholm in Roxburghshire. Thence the eye leaps easily from hill to hill until arrested by the peaked Eildons, which, in the distance, lapse almost insensibly into the Lammermuir range of less elevated heights, that continue our boundary-line to the sea in the parish of Cockburnspath. The sea bounds the whole district on the east*. From the circularity and elevation of the boundary, the district, when viewed from a height, has the appearance of a basin painted within with designs of the most cultured beauty. Spread out beneath us, the bottom presents a seemingly extensive plain intersected by living hedges, partitioned into lozenge-shaped fields of every shade of green and yellow and brown, well-wooded in every part, and mellowed with the moving shadows of living trees, and bearing on its fruitful bosom all sorts of grain and herbage for man and beast. But a narrower survey, while it certifies that this is truly a land flowing with milk and honey, undeceives us as to the evenness of the surface. It is in fact a succession of elevated ridges and intermediate valleys, or, as Mr. Lowe expresses it, "the surface is waved into rising and falling ground." The ridges and valleys lie almost parallel to each other, and run from near N.W. to S.E.; but here and there hills rise up above them either from the plain itself, or pushed so far from the boundary as to appear almost separate from it. Such are Sunnyside Hill, the Kyloe Crags, and Rawse Castle; Halidon, Chirnside, and Hume Castle; Dunse and Cockburn Laws, the Dirringtons, and the hills at St. Abb's and above Cockburnspath. And while the surface is in general under cultivation, and full *The district is almost coequal with the ancient bishopric of Lindisfarne, the limits of which are thus defined by Leland :-"The boundary of Lindisferne bishopric extended from the Tweed (Tueda) to Warnmouth (Warnamuth), thence upward to the place where the Warn (aqua Warnea) has its rise near the Hibburdun hill, and from that hill to the river which is called Bruuk, up to its source. Also that land beyond the Tweed, from the place where the Whitadder (flumen Edræ) rises on the north, to the place where it falls into the Tweed; the whole land which lies between the Whitadder, and another river which is called Leader (Leder) on the west; the whole land which lies east of the river called Leder, to that place where it falls into the Tweed or the south, and the land which pertains unto the monastery of St. Baldred (S. Balther), which is called Tiningham, from Lammermoor (Lambermore) to Estmouth (Eskmouth).' ."-See Carr's Hist. of Coldingham, p. 23. Hist. Berw. Nat. Club, iii. p. 17. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE EASTERN BORDERS. "Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine cunctos "Thou art my native land!" "The green glens and woodlands, And streams o' my ain countrie!" THE Eastern Borders comprehend the whole of Berwickshire, the Liberties of Berwick, North Durham, and the immediately adjacent parts of Northumberland and Roxburghshire. Together they form a district of a nearly circular figure, about forty miles in diameter, and bounded by a tolerably distinct outline, which the eye can trace out from any commanding height within its Thus to the south, and on the verge of the sea, Bamborough Castle forms a conspicuous point, whence a ridge of basaltic hills runs westward to the Warn burn at the foot of the Spindlestone rocks*. The Warn leads us southwards, and through cultivated grounds, to the village of Warnford; and area. * "The name appears to be derived from some insulated irregular columns which project from the mass." See an account of these rocks by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, Bart., in Wern. Mem. iv. p. 254. VOL. I. B Smailholm, and Makerston, are together about equal to Berwickshire; and the proportion of pastoral and waste to cultivated ground is apparently nearly the same. In 1794 Mr. Lowe estimated the acres under plantation in Berwickshire at about 3500. There are now probably not less than 10,000 in the entire district. The soil is various and of every quality; and often so mixed as to make it impossible to distinguish the kinds by any very distinctive name; or, when purer, to mark out their extent and limits, for these are not bounded strictly by geological formations, nor dependent on the rocks underneath for their character. South of the Tweed, "a strong fertile clayey loam occupies the level tract of country along the coast, and reaches as far up in general as the great post-road. It is well adapted to the culture of wheat, pulse, clover, and grazing." Sandy, gravelly, and dry loam, or a turnip-soil, is found along Tweedside, in the western parts especially; and extensively in the vales of the Till and Bowmont. "The hills surrounding the Cheviot mountains are mostly a dry, sharp-pointed, gravelly loam." Moist loams, on a wet cold clayey bottom, are found throughout, but their nature is yearly ameliorated by the labour of man, and made tractable to every purpose of the agriculturist. Black peat-earth is the prevailing soil in the hilly region, and occurs also in many places scattered through the lower district,-marking the position of former morasses and lakes*. Of the soils in Berwickshire the Rev. John Edgar writes :"A great variety of soils exist in the county; some districts being remarkable for a stiff and stubborn clay, others for a mixture of clay and loam; a rich loamy soil characterizing one part of the county, while another is distinguished for a mixture of sand, gravel, and loam in various proportions; and on the same soil all these diversities are sometimes amalgamated. When it is considered that, not unfrequently on the same farm, all these varieties occur, and sometimes even on the same field; and that all these kinds of soil are modified by the character of the subsoil, which also exists in as great diversity,-to classify the varieties of the soil, or to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the extent to which these endless peculiarities prevail, would be almost if not altogether impossible. It may, in general terms, be observed that clay forms the discriminating character of the lands in the 'How of the Merse'; loam that part of the soil which skirts the chief rivers; while turnip-soil is found in those parts of the Merse where there is not too great a preponderance * Bailey and Cully: View of the Agriculture of Northumberland. p. 4-5. 8vo, 1813. SOILS OF BERWICKSHIRE WATER. 5 of clay, and in the arable portion of the Lammermoor district. The lands on Tweedside, and along the banks of the Whitadder and Blackadder, generally consist of a fine deep loam, well fitted for raising luxuriant crops of almost every description, resting commonly on a gravelly subsoil, though sometimes on a tenacious clay. These tracts of land are the most valuable in the county, and have been long under a course of skilful management. In the intermediate tract betwixt these rivers the land is less valuable, and degenerates into a stiff and hard clay, difficult to work, and from resting on a subsoil of stiff till, liable to be saturated with moisture, and long retaining it when thus saturated. The remainder of the arable part consists of a sharp sandy and gravelly soil, well adapted for raising turnips, combined in different proportions with loam and clay, easily wrought, and varying in quality and value according to the nature of the subsoil on which it is incumbent. This species of land is highly valued, and those farms which contain a considerable proportion of turnip-soil are generally preferred by the tenantry. In the Agricultural Report of this county, published by the late John Home, Esq., W.S., upwards of thirty years ago, the proportions of the various kinds of soil are thus given :-Deep loam on the principal rivers, 25,410 acres; clay lands in the How of the Merse, 40,380; turnip-soil, 119,780; meadow, moss, and moor in Lauderdale and Lammermoor, 99,870*." The water is as various as the soils through which it percolates, and from which it has borrowed its saline constituents. My friend Dr. R. D. Thomson found that the well-water at Eccles, with a specific gravity of 1.000792, contained 57.75 grs. of sulphate of lime, and 29 752 of common salt in the imperial gallon†. This may be an average specimen of the water of the How-ofthe-Merse, but the springs which issue from the greywacke and syenitic hills contain doubtless less saline matter. There is a wide difference too between the hard water of the wells that Stat. Acc. Berwicks. p. 364. Penny Cyclopædia, art. Berwickshire. See also Home's Rectified Report, p. 12–13; Kerr's View of the Agriculture of the County of Berwick, p. 30-37; Milne on the Geology of Berwickshire, p. 248–251.—“Mr. Couling estimates the cultivated lands in Berwickshire-the arable lands, gardens, meadows, and pastures, at 160,000 acres; the uncultivated or waste lands capable of cultivation, at 100,000; and the unprofitable lands or surface occupied by roads, lakes, rivers, canals, rivulets, brooks, farm-yards, quarries, ponds, ditches, hedges, fences, cliffs, craggy declivities, stony places, barren spots, woods and plantations, &c., at 25,600 English statute acres. If we take this estimate, the area of the county in square miles is 4464. The sea-coast of Berwickshire is about seventeen miles and a half in length, from the boundaries of the township of Berwick to its junction with East Lothian."-Penny Cyclopædia. + Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. v. p. 646. cannot be used in domestic economy, and the soft water of lakes and rivers that cleanses unaided; and we have besides many kinds of intermediate qualities, which chemistry does not descend to analyse*. Yet each variety exerts, probably, a peculiar influence over the vegetation which it nourishes, and, indirectly, over the distribution of the associated animals ;—an influence which has been only imperfectly noted. There are many mineral springs scattered over the district. At Spittal there is a chalybeate of sufficient tonic virtue, but defective in every accessory ornament to render that virtue useful†. There is an "exceeding cold" spring at Cornhill which was once resorted to by many invalids‡; but a more numerous company waited upon the Dunse Spaw, of which we have an account, in 1751, from Dr. Francis Home, a physician of deserved eminence. "The well is situated in a valley, which lyes a short mile on the south-side of Dunse§." It is an ordinary chalybeate water in which "the iron seems to be held in solution by carbonic acid; and, if any confidence can be placed in Dr. Home's trials, its strength is nearly the same as that of Tunbridge Wells." Very different has been their history. Tunbridge Wells maintain their character, while the Spaw at Dunse has lost its short-lived reputation, and to many, even in the neighbourhood, its exact site is unknown. The spring on Harelaw Moor, in the parish of Westruther, "which is perpetually boiling, and has never been known to freeze during the greatest intensity of winter," is of very similar quality to the Dunse Spaw, and repeats the story of popular favour and subsequent neglect ||. In the parish of Edrom near Allanton there is a mineral spring called the "Vertur" or Virtue-well¶; and our untravelled ancestors had doubtless another well 22 "From which fast trickled forth a silver flood, near the onstead of Mungos' Wells, for a simple and credulous age would not wantonly dedicate to the patron saint of healing waters a spring without at least a reputed character of efficacy. These wells scarcely differ in composition from the chalybeate on the Leet in the parish of Eccles, which was furnished with a * "The water of the Blackadder (though its colour is black) is exceedingly pure. The engineers appointed to equalize the weights and measures of the county found it nearly correspond to the weight of distilled water." Stat. Acc. Berwicks. p. 41. Fuller's Hist. of Berwick, p. 476. Home on the Dunse Spaw, p. 173. Dr. Home's work is entitled, " An Essay on the Contents and Virtues of Dunse-Spaw." Edin. 1751, 8vo. Stat. Acc. Berwicks. p. 65. ¶ Ibid. p. 267. |