FIELD MEETINGS. 195 
sandstones of triassic age. It is not necessary to look east or 
west, since the country is banded diagonally N.E.—S.W., 
and a N.W.—S.E. cross section is sufficient for our purpose. 
We stand then on the meeting-line of silurian and younger 
formations—a geologic borderland, and the basaltic upwelling 
remains a silent, inarticulate witness of crustal activity in the 
record of the rocks. 
Dumfriesshire a Buffer Area. 
Dumfriesshire’s part in the history of Scotland has been 
largely determined and conditioned by its geographical posi- 
tion and its topography. ’Iwere presumption to descant on 
these to the present company; a sentence or two must suffice. 
The county’s fate has been in the main that of a buffer area 
in very early times between Neolithic west and Celtic east, 
later between Celts and Angles, still later between Scots and 
English. And the fact that the shire is situated on the great 
western corridor of Brita'n has intensified all that resulted 
from its buffer position. Within the ancient area the Birrens- 
wark site is nodal; it has hence focussed history upon itself ;. 
it has, as has been already said, epitomised the county’s 
record. Of the three longitudinal hollows which notch the 
Solway—stretching spurs of the southern uplands, the Annan 
Valley, by reason of its central position and the importance 
of its terminals, is indubitably the chief. Within the corridor 
one basin, on account of its peculiar topography, is historically 
determinative. Where the Annan curves round the Hoddam 
ridge just at the junction point of the Mein Water there is 
provided a physical setting almost unique. No scene of such 
circumscribed limits can offer the associations, literary and 
historical, such as are offered within the circle of three miles 
radius which takes in St. Mungo and Brydekirk, Hoddam and 
Ecclefechan, Mainhill and Scotsbrig, Robgill and Kirkconnel, 
Birrens and Birrenswark, Repentance Tower and Bonshaw. 
Besieged by Agricola. 
To come to the hill itself, the earthworks surrounding it, 
though undoubtedly Roman, may in all probability occupy 
sites of British forts, and the presence of hill fortification on 
many of the surrounding eminences is strong corroborative 
