564 Soils of Scotland. 



even high on the slopes, is deep, and the ground is 

 fertile, and many beautiful vales intersect the country. 

 Through this classic ground run the Whitader and the 

 Tweed, the Teviot and the Clyde ; the White Esk, the 

 Annan, the Nith, and the Dee, which run through the 

 mountains of Galloway to the Solway Firth. Most of 

 these rivers have often a bare, unwooded, and solitary 

 pastoral character in the upper parts of their courses, 

 gradually passing, as they descend and widen, into well 

 cultivated fields and woodlands. 



The great central valley of Scotland, between the 

 metamorphic series of the Highland mountains and the 

 less altered Silurian strata of the high-lying southern 

 counties, is occupied by rocks of a more mixed charac- 

 ter, consisting of Old Eed Sandstone and Marl, and of 

 the shales, sandstones, and limestones of the Carboni- 

 ferous series, intermixed with considerable masses of 

 igneous rocks. The effect of denudation upon these 

 formations in old times, particularly of the denuda- 

 tion which took place during the Glacial period, and 

 also of the rearrangement of the ice-borne debris by 

 subsequent marine action, has been to cover large 

 tracts of country with a happy mixture of materials 

 such as clay mixed with pebbles, sand, and lime. In 

 this way one of the most fertile tracts anywhere to be 

 found in our island has been formed, and its cultivation 

 for nearly a century has been taken in hand by skilful 

 farmers, who have brought the agriculture of that dis- 

 trict up to the very highest pitch which it has attained 

 in any part of Great Britain. 



Through the inland parts of England, from North- 

 umberland to Derbyshire, we have another long tract 

 of hilly country, composed of Carboniferous rocks, 

 forming in parts regions so high that, except in the 



