OF ANGLO-SAXON DERIVATION. S47 
thumberland, but more especially along the remarkable line 
of basaltic rock which traverses the county from south-west to 
north-east. Such is The Heugh near Stamfordham, Hmbleton 
Heugh, and Howick Heugh. Indeed the name of this latter town- 
ship appears to owe its first syllable to the same element used as 
a definitive. 
Edge, A. 8. ecg, is applied to ridges of moor and other elongat- 
ed heights. When it enters into close composition, as the sub- 
stantive term, and consequently is pronounced as an unaccented 
syllable, it is not exempt from being mistaken and misspelt. 
Thus, in certain maps and in certain writings, the Colledge 
Burn, which flows from the northern side of Cheviot, will be 
found written as College Water; a spelling assuredly more aca- 
demical than scholarlike. 
Swire, A. S. Swira, Old Norse, Swiri, the neck.—The conforma- 
tion of ground, to which this designation has been applied on 
the Border Moors, is that which is met with where there is a 
sinking or depression in the ridge of a continuous line of hill, or 
between two somewhat higher points or summits, which last 
the swire serves to connect. 
The same idea is expressed among the Alps and the Pyrenees 
by the word col, (Lat. Collum,) which will be remembered by all 
who have travelled in those magnificent regions, in connection 
with many of their most celebrated passes. It is sufficient to 
adduce the Col de Tende, which is a lowering in the chain of the 
Maritime Alps, affording a passage to a line of road of great 
celebrity, both from the difficulties that were surmounted in its 
construction, and from the grandeur of the scenes which it dis- 
closes. I am enabled even to add, from the information of an 
Icelandic Friend, that the word hals, which exactly corresponds 
to col, is applied in Icelandic to similar conformations of 
ground, among the mountains of the remote Northern isle. 
In Northumberland, the Reedswire was a well-known pass 
frequented by the Moss-troopers, between Reedsdale and the 
banks of the Jed. 
There is a White-Swire, I believe, on the skirts of Cheviot, 
though I am not exactly acquainted with the spot. 
