TERRACED SLOPES IN NORTH TYNEDALE, 47 



military earthworks does not hold good of the Birtley terraces, 

 whose rectangular area (completed by an imaginary line on the 

 east and north) would have included nearly eight acres of ground, 

 it must be a fortiori much more improbable in the case of any of 

 the other terraced slopes of North Tynedale. 



From independent investigation, therefore, I am shut in to the 

 conclusion that they have a dijQferent origin from any of these al- 

 ready suggested. That is, i<^e find in them the early attemjJts at 

 cereal cultivation of the ancient British inhabitants of the valley. 



Most of us have seen instances of terrace cultivation, if not in 

 our own country, at least in foreign lands. The traveller by the 

 Calais or Boulogne route to Paris is struck by the appearance of 

 the northern declivity of the Somme valley, near AbbevUle and 

 Amiens, where the peasants still cultivate the ancient river mar- 

 gins, which are in places parallel to each other, being level ter- 

 races of gravel, in patches chiefly of wheat and the vine. These, 

 no doubt, are natural or fluviatile ledges ;* but they illustrate 

 the advantage of using such sites, which are more secure from 

 the wasting effects of sudden rains, and more sheltered than 

 sloping soils could be, that, bearing with them the seeds or 

 young plants, might be washed away, and the labour of the cul- 

 tivators rendered vain. The terraced vineyards on the banks 

 of the Ehine, in Provence, and in Switzerland, as on the south- 

 ern slopes of the Jorat, between Lausanne and Vevay, will also 

 be recalled to mind, as having been expressly formed or made 

 available for culture. Dr. Hooker has described some parallel 

 terraces, more analogous, indeed, to those of Glen Eoy, in the 

 upper valleys of the Himalaya mountains.! But elsewhere in In- 

 dia, as in the picturesque district of the AravuUi, in Raj-pootana, 

 Colonel Tod and others have noticed the series of terraces rising 



* Compare Sir J. Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," p. 310. 



t " Aiiliquitics of Man," 2iul Edition, p. 2Gl. In the " Proceedings of the Society of An- 

 tiquaries of Scotland," Vol. I., p. 127, I find that Mr. R. Chambers illustrates the terraces of 

 Peeblesshire by a reference to similar works, not only in England, France, and Germany, but 

 also in Hungary, Peru, and Palestine. My attention has also been dl•a^^^^ to such instances 

 in the island of Madeira, and in the valley of the Mississippi, by travellers who had ob- 

 served them. In the latter case the so-called "Ancient garden beds,'' or Indian corn-liills, 

 ■ may be meant. 



