431 

 GEOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS. 



A Fut/ to HartfeB and BirkhiU Spas, in the County of Dwnfries. 



The ridge of transition rocks which traverses the northern part of the county 

 of Dumfries, attains its maximum height at Hartfell, (3300 feet.) From the 

 Lowthers (3130 feet) to this point the country is rugged and mountainous, and 

 is often constituted of uplands crowned with small hiUs, and more rarely of moun> 

 tains, descending in long acclivities, or cleft perpendicularly to their bases. It is 

 difficult in the disorder produced by such an arrangement, to trace the connec- 

 tion of the dift'erent ranges, or to assign to each its relative importance. As we 

 approach Hartfell, however, the ranges become more distinct, and we find streams 

 following the long line of a transverse valley, or pouring through successive circular 

 basins, admitted on all hands to have been originally lakes. It is another ques- 

 tion whether the vale of Annan was once the bed of a stream far greater than the 

 present one,* — whence could such a stream have originated ? It is true that we 

 can trace, along the course of this romantic valley, depositions which are not of a 

 diluvial character, but the same case occurs in Ettrickdale and in Eskdale. The 

 origin of these depositions, however, may probably be referred to the period when 

 the waters were retained in these long vallies by the disruption of the trap rocks 

 many miles from their source, and time or accident may have effected the opening 

 by which the valley has been laid bare, and the present small stream left to flow 

 in the thalweg or central line. The deep ravines and high glens that join this 

 line on all sides, or inclose its highest termination, — the angular debris and ce- 

 mented fragments of the rocks in the immediate neighbourhood, covered by 

 pebbles rolled from afar, and incasing the acclivities, or forming a deep bed, 

 covered with river sand and gravel, in the bottom of the valley, are the monu- 

 ments of these great changes, between periods of quiescence and periods of the 

 rapid passage or descent of waters from their former leveL 



Whether we ascend the verdant Annandale from the south, along the road that 

 skirts the acclivities of its lateral mountains, or whether we stand upon the ridge 

 at its northern head, and glance at the stream winding like a silver thread amid 

 groves and meads, or washing the foot of beech-crowned hamlets, we are forced 

 to recollections of this character ; and when we leave the beaten track, and tread 

 the brown heather and moss, through narrow vales, with precipitate acclivities 

 rearing their bare heads to the clouds, we feel inspired with admiration at the extent 

 of these great phenomena, and the power of the causes which produced them. 



The bleak vale of Hartfell branches off from the striking ravine of Errickstane 

 to the east, and at the immediate entrance its stream bursts through a rocky bar- 

 rier, reeling over in numerous rapids, and shaded by the only few trees that are 

 met with in the ravine. During our walk, a nest of young merlins were fanning 

 the breeze with their spread tails, and winging their first flight from one side of the 

 ravine to the other ; it was just enough to save them from being caught. The 

 distance from the entrance of the vale to the foot of the mountain is not great ; but 

 halfway up the valley we first meet with a bed of the alum slate, or rock from whence 

 the mineral waters issue. A level had been driven into the hill, but we were not 

 aware whether in pursuit of a metalliferous vein, or merely for the alum slate. 



Ravines of the character of Hartfell and Birkhill, (head of Moffat water,) owe 

 their actual appearances entirely to the action of present causes. The rock in 

 their vicinity is entirely composed of beds of alum slate, which is slaty and fri- 

 able, and easily decomposed by the action of air and moisture, and still more easily 

 wrought upon by mountain torrents laden with gravel and sand. The abrupt 

 acclivities shiver like the shale of the millstone-grit, (as at Mara Tor in Derby- 

 shire, Alston Moor, and in Lanarkshire,) or like the shales of the lower fresh 



• Jameson's Mineralogy of Dumfries-shire. 

 VOL. II. 3 X. 



