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flat north of the Esk. Most of the peat was removed shortly after 
the irruption, partly by fire, but chiefly by water. The Rey. 
William Gilpin, Vicar of Boldre, a writer well known in his time 
for his works on the Picturesque, visited the spot shortly after the 
catastrophe, and has left a graphic account of it, and of the means 
taken to remove the peat from the alluvial plain. Comparatively 
little could be removed by fire, but an ingenious plan, invented 
by a man named Wilson, for employing the carrying power of 
running water was very effective. From the reservoirs formed by 
a little stream at the highest part of the over-flowed ground, he 
cut channels in various directions to the Esk, and when the water 
was let off, he placed numbers of men by the stream, who rolled 
into it large masses of peat which had been hardened by the sun. 
The stream tumbled them into the river, and the river conveyed 
them to the sea. 
Many small peaty or alluvial flats mark the spots once occupied 
by lakelets in slight hollows of the earthy gravel. They are 
especially common in the neighbourhood of Rockcliff and Great 
Orton. The turnpike road between Carlisle and Gretna crosses 
many of them. The network of what must have been till lately 
simply morasses, which occupies so much of the ground directly 
north of Carlisle, must have been a great additional protection to 
the Border City in mosstrooping times. In Thurstonfield and 
Monkhill Loughs are preserved two undrained examples of the 
lakelets. 
We now come to the broad river and estuarine flats. Terraces 
of river gravel elevated more or less above the present alluvium 
are well shown on the Esk about Netherby; the Lyne above Cliff 
Bridge, Kirklinton ; and the Eden about Low Crosby. Many of 
the streets of Carlisle, at the Botchergate end, are on a terrace of 
river gravel. Union-street, with its continuation to the Water- 
works, is an example. Of course these terraces record the fact 
that the rivers which deposited them once flowed at a higher level 
than they now do. The precise changes that have taken place in 
the channels of the Carlisle rivers cannot be ascertained ; but it is 
probable that the Petteril, or the Petteril and Eden united, once 
