Geohyy and Geography. 431 



The Secretary exhibited an impression of a fossil plant, supposed 

 to be new, from Ayrshire, and sent by Dr Thomson of Glasgow ; 

 also an unnsually large skull of the ox from a marl pit in Caithness, 

 sent for inspection by Mr Robison. 



Dr Buckland laid before the Section a drawing by Mrs Turner 

 of Liverpool, of a large fossil marine plant, found in the new red 

 sandstone of that neighbourhood in 1829. 



Although the paper of which the following is an abstract, was in 

 part read in the Natural History Section, yet, as its contents are 

 chiefly geological, we deem it preferable to give an account of it in 

 this place. It is entitled, " Account of the Natural History of the 

 central portion of the great mountain range of the south of Scot- 

 land, in which arise the sources of the Tweed." By W. Macgilli- 

 vray, Esq. 



The mountains forming the most elevated part of this range 

 are situated in the parishes of Tweedsmuir, Megget, and Manner, 

 which form the southern and south-eastern parts of the inland 

 county of Peebles, and are continuous with the high land form- 

 ing the celebrated pastoral districts of Yarrow and Ettrick in 

 Selkirkshire, and with the higher parts of the parish of Moffat in 

 Dumfries. This region was described as composed of uniform, 

 smooth, rounded hills of greywacke, scarcely ever precipitous or 

 even abrupt, clothed to the summits with junceae, cyperaceae, grasses, 

 heath and pasture plants, and separated into groups or ridges by 

 long, narrow, straight valleys, which, although generally green, 

 seldom present any natural wood, even along the clear streams 

 that flow into the valley of the Tweed. The valley of Manner 

 water was taken as a characteristic specimen of the numerous de- 

 pressions by which the country is grooved. Whitecoom, Hartfell, 

 and other mountains, were described, and the alpine plants observ- 

 ed on them enumerated, with the view of contrasting this region 

 with the Grampian range. The vegetation of the cleuchs or ravines 

 was also described. The Tweed was then followed from its sources, 

 to Peebles, and finally to the moutlis of the Gala and Ettrick, in 

 thd whole of which space the rocks are composed of greywacke, 

 greywacke -slate, clay-slate, slate-clay, and occasional small beds of 

 limestone, none of which, however, are wrought. The districts of 

 Yarrow and Ettrick, which are of precisely similar geological struc- 

 ture, were then described, with reference to their scenery, vegeta- 

 tion, and animal productions. 



Perhaps few districts in Scotland of equal extent present less 



Ff2 



