316 Mr M cnteath on the Geology?/ of Nithsdale. 



The soil of New Cumnock Basin is clayey, stifl' and tena- 

 cious, such as is generally found covering the coal formation. 

 The herbage, though abundant, is coarse. It is, however, well 

 adapted for the food of the dairy cow ; and, accordingly, the 

 farmers of this basin have availed themselves of this natural ad- 

 vantage of their situation, and employed the lime which is found 

 every where at hand in ameliorating the soil, and improving the 

 pasture. Much has been ploughed far up the hills, and artifi- 

 cial grasses introduced ; and, following up this system, they have, 

 by great care and expense, collected a breed of the Cunynghame 

 or Dunlop cow, a small short horned animal, unequalled, per- 

 Jiaps, by the breed of any other district of Ayrshire. They make 

 great quantities of butter and cheese, which is exported to all 

 parts of the kingdom. 



The Basin of New Cumnock, though described as one of 

 the series of basins in the course of the Nith, cannot correctly 

 be viewed as a separate coal formation, but as forming a part of 

 that of the great basin of the Ayr, which extends from Muir- 

 kirk, (where great quantities of argillaceous carbonate of iron 

 are found, raised, and smelted), all the way to the sea, including 

 the greatest part of the county of Ayr, which great coal-field 

 is separated from that of the Clyde and Forth by a narrow 

 ridge pf the Strathavon and Loudon Hills. 



It may not he uninteresting to state, that, not far from the 

 borders of the New Cumnock Basin, near Old Cumnock, gra- 

 phite is found in considerable quantity in the coal formation *, 

 and it might probably be found in this basin also. 



Notwithstanding the great abundance of coal in the New Cum- 

 nock Basin, the demand for it has been inconsiderable, owing to 

 its being thinly inhabited, and opening on the north and south into 

 a coal country. In one instance, however, the case has been 

 different. A coal occurs near the source of the Nith at Auld- 

 know, considered excellently adapted for the working of iron. 

 With this view, therefore, it is carried in considerable quantity 

 over a great part of the counties of Ayr, Dumfries and Kirkcud- 

 bright, often to a distance of fifty or sixty miles, thus forming the 



• A Geognostical description of the Cumnock Graphite will be found in 

 Professor Jameson's Mineralogical Description of Dumfriesshire, pp. 158-162. 



