8 THE EASTERN BORDERS. 



fine weather, marked, however, with characteristic variableness, 

 so that a sultry day loaded with gossamer may lead on to even a 

 sunnier with a sharp frosty piquancy in its breeze that quickens 

 the walk and accelerates the flow of the spirits. The state of 

 the weather, from an average of five years of the register kept at 

 Eccles, is as follows : — 120 rainy days, 12 snowy days, 39 frosty 

 days, and 234 fair days, making the proportion of rainy to fair 

 days as 1 to 2 nearly. The mean annual temperature of the 

 atmosphere may be taken to be 48°* in our low lands ; and 

 about 44° in the range of the Lammermoor and Cheviot Hills f. 



The Tweed divides the district into nearly equal halves. The 

 sea-shore to the south of the river is flat and sandy, interrupted 

 in some places by elevated banks of sandstone, in others by a 

 muddy soil deposited by the rivulets which terminate in its bays 

 or estuaries J. It is bounded by a narrow strip of links formed 

 of sand knolls flxed by means of bent and similar plants ; and, 

 although barren and almost waste in an agricultural view, 

 these links are rich to the naturalist in flowers and insects 

 of great beauty, and not of such commonness as to render them 

 uninteresting. External to them, the country is flat and highly 

 cultivated ; but, at a distance of three miles or more, we reach 

 the elevated moors that occupy a large space in the heart of this 

 portion of our district. These moors are girded on the east by 

 the basaltic ridge which, commencing at Bamborough, forms the 

 hill and rocks at Spindlestone, the crags at Easington and above 

 Belford, and the rocky ledges which are continued northwards 

 thence to Kyloe and Lowlin, — a length of several miles. On 

 the eastern side this ridge has a steep and rapid ascent, and its 

 western front is abrupt and precipitous, scarred in several places 

 with lofty columnar cliffs, and a copious loose debris at their 

 base. The highest point is 570 feet above the level of the sea. 

 Such a ridge, as may be anticipated, afibrds some interesting 

 scenery, and is favourable to the growth of plants loving a shallow 

 soil and an open airy position. 



Westward of these heights the ground again rapidly declines 

 to form the fertile plain through which the Till winds its sluggish 



* Stat. Ace. Bervvicks. p. 51. f Hist. Berw. Nat. Club, i. p. 195. 



X " From Bamborough to the mouth of the Tweed is a sandy shore, 

 narrowing as it approaches our sister kingdom. Lindesfarn, or the Holy 

 Island, with its ruined cathedral and castle, lie remote from shore, access- 

 ible at every recess of tide, and possibly divided from Northumberland by 

 the power of the waves in distant ages. The tides do not swell over this 

 tract in the usual manner of apparent flowing and gradual a})proach, but 

 ooze gently out of every part of the sand, which at first appears a quaggy 

 extent, then, to the tenor of the traveller, surrounds him with a shining 

 plain of smooth unruffled water, reflecting the varied landscajjcs of the ad- 

 joining shores." — Pennant. Aictic Zoology, i. p. xv. 



