TERRACED SLOPES IN NORTH TYNEDALE. 35 



A third series, but less distinctly marked, is met with on the 

 western declivity of the same ridge, immediately below Buteland 

 House, about one mile distant. Here facing due west, towards 

 the North Tyne, as it encircles Countess Park, the whole slope 

 is covered with "rig and rean" cultivation, intermingled with 

 which, where the descent is more abrupt, are six or seven ter- 

 race-Unes, averaging three feet in height and many yards in 

 breadth. 



The fourth and last series of the Birtley group is that remark- 

 able example, half-a-mile to the west of the village, the lines of 

 which run nearly at a right angle to each other. As these sin- 

 gular terraces are exceedingly well defined, and may be taken 

 as typical of all the rest in the district, I have made a more care- 

 ful examination of this than of any of the other series ; in which 

 I have been aided by a tracing from the Ordnance Survey, kindly 

 given me by Lieutenant H. Helsham Jones, R.E, The western 

 side of the incomplete rectangle is over three hundred yards in 

 extreme length, the southern face being one hundred and ten 

 yards. The former is cut into six terrace-lines or ledges of un- 

 equal length, having a shorter one inserted about mid-way ; and 

 the lowest projects outwards in a convex manner from the usual 

 horizontal straight line. Making allowance for the gradual de- 

 trition, or wearing down of the soil, the terraces average three, 

 five, six, seven, one-and-a-half, and five feet in height, reckoning 

 from the base ; and the platforms are fourteen, eight, and the 

 three uppermost, nine yards in breadth. Other lines of small 

 relative elevations exist at the summit, intermingled as in the 

 west Buteland example, with the broad furrows of comparatively 

 recent cultivation. About mid-way in the length of this west 

 face the escarpment reaches its greatest height above the river, 

 and from that point has a gentle inclination to north and south. 

 The terraces themselves, towards the north, now begin to les- 

 sen considerably in altitude, but usually retaining their previous 

 breadth ; until crossing the road to Birtley Shields, the three up- 

 permost ledges, for more than a hundred yards, do not rise above 

 two or even one foot above each other. They then are seen to 

 coalesce gradually into the level sm-facc of the ground towards 



