RIVERS TEVIOT, NITH, AND CLYDE. 459 



near Penton, in Kii-kandrew's parish. The Liddell is there usually from sixteen 

 to eighteen inches deep. 



The Lyne, near West Linton, on the confines of Peeblesshire and Mid-Lothian, 

 stopped likewise on the same day ; and again on the 25th February in the same 

 year, viz. ] 748. 



The Esk, near Langholm, stopped and remained dry for six hom-s, on 23d 

 February 1748 ; and again, two days afterwards. The Esk at this place is, on an 

 average, from eighteen inches to three feet deep. 



The Ma, near Keith (Banffshire), was, on 28th January 1753, dried up for 

 several hours. 



The Tweed, at Peebles, was, on the 14th February 1753, entirely dried up from 

 6 A. M. to 6 p. M. 



The Dovern was dry on the 2d April 1754, between the Rack and the Surry 

 fords, — i. e. for about a quai-ter of a mile, — and continued so aU day. Numbers 

 of people crossed dry shod. 



On the 9th February 1755, the river Beauly, near Kilmarnock and Kiltarlity, 

 seven miles west of Inverness, became entirely dry during the prevalence of a 

 hard frost.* 



The South Esk, near Brechin, in Forfarshire, went dry in 1813, — the parti- 

 cular month I have not ascertained. My informant writes, that people might 

 have crossed the bed of the river, in many places without wetting their feet, that 

 the mills were all stopped, that salmon were caught with the hand in the deserted 

 pools, and that the washerwomen who were occupied along the sides of the river 

 in their peculiar vocation, came home with their clothes unwashed, in a state of 

 distress and consternation. 



I shall now offer some suggestions, with the view of explaining the occur- 

 . rence described in the previous part of this memoir. 



It must appear sufficiently obvious to any one, who has attended to the cir- 

 cumstances above described, that the frost which prevailed in the south of Scot- 

 land during the night of the 26th November, must have, at least, had a good deal 

 to do, in the production of that occurrence. Indeed, the bare fact that, on all the 

 occasions when it was observed in any part of the country, it happened during 

 the six months intervening between November and April inclusive, strongly sug- 

 gests this conclusion. 



One thing appears abundantly evident, that the phenomenon on this occasion 

 was in no way connected with an earthquake, as was at first imagined ; and it is 

 not improbable that, if all the circumstances attending the drying up of the Trent 

 and the Thames, in the 12th century, could be ascertained, they would be found 



* For this information, I am indebted to Mr Grierson of Dalgado, near Dumfries, who saw a 

 notice of the present memoir in the Society's abstract of business. 



