50 REV. G. R. HALL ON 



still employed, with low stone ramparts for the more careful pre- 

 servation of the soil. There appear to be ti'aces of this in the 

 Birtley series, though I would not rest much upon its occurrence. 

 A section of the terrace face in various places would alone make 

 sure of this peculiarity. But wherever those unhewn supporting 

 walls appear, they prove beyond a shadow of doubt the presence 

 of man's handiwork in the origin of such terraced slopes. In the 

 other case, where it was possible for nature to be made subser- 

 vient, it must be concluded, as Dean Stanley remarks of many 

 instances in the Holy Land, that the sides of the hills have them- 

 selves been formed by natural agencies into horizontal, or, as in 

 the Holy Land, " concentric rings of rock," and that these rock 

 ledges must have served in ancient times as supports to the ter- 

 races when they were under cultivation.* 



The only reasonable objections to the conclusion that our North 

 Tynedale terraced slopes were early culture-plots of a primitive 

 people are these two, and they are not very difficult to meet. 

 One is, that some of the terrace-lines have a frontage which a 

 practical agriculturist of the present day would consider unfa- 

 voui'able, namely, that their aspect is too northerly, so that the 

 cereals would not receive the full benefit of the sun's rays, and 

 that the primitive cultivators could as readily have chosen sites 

 in the immediate vicinity for their excavation, which would not 

 have been open to this objection. The prolonged front of the 

 Birtley series was taken as an instance. But on examining the 

 Ordnance tracing, or larger map of the district, it will be seen 

 that the terrace-lines run with their faces almost west by north, 

 and not north-west, or nearly due north, as supposed by the ob- 

 jector (an authority on such matters) ; so that even these slopes 

 would bask in the rays of the afternoon sun.f And as all the 

 other terraces have their slopes varying from due south to due 

 west (and most of them have been actually under tillage within 

 the last hundred years) it will be seen that the early agriculturists 



* " Sinai and Palestine," Chap. II., p. 138, 3rd Edition. 



t The Rev. Mr. Greenwell infonns me he has noticed on tlie Yorltshire Wolds, near Mal- 

 ton, instances of terraces on a great scale, with a northerly aspect, clearly, as he belieyes, for 

 cultivation. 



