TERRACED SLOPES IN NORTH TYJ^EDALE. 49 



of Rede Water, at Old Carlisle, and other places."* Within late 

 years also much attention has been paid to the terraced slopes 

 of Palestine (built upon parallel ledges on the limestone hills and 

 their escarpments) as a proof of the ancient fertility of the Holy 

 Land, according to the Biblical description, and as a means of 

 future climatal as well as social improvement. After noticing the 

 encircling ledges of the limestone strata, making the hills on the 

 upland plateau between Jerusalem and Hebron to resemble so 

 many " straw bee-hives," and lamenting their present utter bar- 

 renness. Dr. Norman McLeod, in "Eastward," adds: — "Yet it 

 is obvious, as has been remarked by every traveller, that an in- 

 dustrious population could very soon transform these barren hills 

 into terraces rich with ' corn and wine.' Were these limestone 

 ridges once more provided with walls to prevent the soil being 

 washed down into the valley by the rain floods, and were fresh 

 soil carried up from the hollows, where it must lie fathoms deep, 

 magnificent crops would very soon be produced. It is well known 

 also," he observes, "how soon the moisture of the climate would 

 be affected by the restoration of the orchards."! 



Thus we see that such terrace -cultivation, as v/e suppose either 

 wholly originated or greatly modified the parallel ledges on the 

 hill slopes of North Tynedale, has been no unusual or peculiar 

 method of securing the "kindly fruits of the earth." Sometimes, 

 as in an example at the junction of the two sources of the River 

 Gelt, in Cumberland (to the east of the terraces I before referred 

 to), we meet with parallel ledges, apparently built up like those 

 of Palestine and other countries, where this mode of culture is 



* " Roman WaU," 2nd Edition, p. 192. In the 3rd EcUtion, p. 191. 



fDoau Stanley ("Sinai and Palestine," Chap. II., p. 120) quotes a passage from Dr. 

 Olln's Travels, which clearly shows the necessity of terraces for cereal cultivation where the 

 rainfall is abundant, as it would be in Northumberland, and especially on the flaulcs of tlie 

 Cheviot range, when primeval forests, in which the cultivated spots were mere clearings, 

 covered the face of the land. " The entire destruction of the woods which once covered the 

 mountains, and the utter neglect of the teiTaccs which supported the soil on steep declivities, 

 have given full scope to the rains, which have left many tracts of bare rock whore formei'ly 

 were vineyards and corn-fields." In Smith's "Dictionary of the Rible," Vol. I., p. 28, Art. 

 " Agriculture," it is said, " The lightness of agi-icultnral labour in the plains set free an 

 abundance of hands for the task of terracing and watering, and the result gave the highest 

 stimulus to industry." 



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