76 A NEW nOEA OF 



the heart of this plateau, from west to east, to join the "Wooler 

 Water a little above Earl, flows a stream which is called the 

 Common Burn, with a fork on the north called Broadstruther 

 Burn. Both are bare moorland rivulets till they unite, after 

 which tlie banks are wooded, and there is a narrow craggy- 

 ravine with a waterfall at the bottom, about which grow Sie- 

 racium frenant}mdes and Crepis succismfolia. But the most 

 interesting glens of the Cheviot, whether for the botanist or 

 lover of scenery, are those which penetrate the great ridge on 

 the north, and contain the sykes which unite to form the Col- 

 lege Burn. Within less than a mile from the cairn these decline 

 in level 1600 feet, steep, bare, treeless ravines, their rivulets 

 fed from innumerable bright-green well-heads, where copious 

 fountains gush clear and cool out of the hill-side, flanked by em- 

 bankments of loose stones or precipitous columns of red or grey 

 porphyritic crag, the stream at the bottom leaping from terrace 

 to terrace down a channel so steep that it is almost one continu- 

 ous waterfall in the rainy season. To reach these from Wooler 

 the best way is not to take the Earl road at all, but that which 

 leads out of the head of the town on the west, and follow a foot- 

 path across the central heathery plateau, the portion of which 

 nearest the town is called Wooler Common, crossing the Common 

 Burn where the two branches join, and following the Broad- 

 struther Fork out to its head. There is a horse-track all the 

 way, that leads into the hollow of the College Burn, which is 

 an open grassy depression of no particular interest, except that 

 just above its very head, in the direction of the highest Cheviot 

 cairn, is the station for Cornus suecica. The highest farm-house 

 on the College is called Goldscleugh, and is a little over 1000 

 feet in altitude. There is a small ravine above it, but the three 

 principal ones are further west. Erom the next farm-house, 

 about half a mile lower down, we can look right, up two of the 

 rocky ravines, one of which, called Dunsdale, originates in the 

 east, and the other, called the Brizzle or Bizzle, on the west of 

 the western Cheviot cairn. On the flank of this ridge, from 

 1200 feet down to the stream, we have one of the few relics of 

 the primeval forest of Cheviot, consisting here almost altogether 



