yORTHUMBEELAlSrD AND DtTEHAM:. 83 



1436 feet in altitude. Prom this point down to Alwinton the 

 distance is 14 miles. The most interesting point of the river is 

 at Linn Shiels, 2 miles west of Alwinton. Here, on the east, 

 a precipice of porphyritic crag rises from the stream to a height 

 of 100 feet above it. The opposite bank is also steep and craggy, 

 and a horse-shoe shaped ravine is formed, at the bottom of which 

 the stream, pent within a narrow channel of rock, flows in a 

 succession of leaps and dark peaty pools. This is the point at 

 which, proceeding downwards, the sedimentary strata are first 

 reached in the bed of the river ; and below the ravine the Tue- 

 dian flagstones may be seen clearly dipping towards the south- 

 east at a steep angle of inclination. The Eidlees Burn, which 

 joins the Coquet just below, is almost coincident along its whole 

 course with the line where the porphyry ceases. At Windy- 

 haugh, 6 miles from its source, the Coquet is only 830 feet above 

 sea-level, and at Alwinton, 8 miles lower down, it has sunk to 

 500 feet. In the corner between the Alwine and the Coquet, the 

 hills rise to a height of about 1000 feet. The upper part of the 

 Alwine has the same character as that of the Coquet, so that this 

 drainage tract contains almost as much porphyritic hill and dale 

 country as the first district, a tract of about 70 square miles in 

 area, stretching from Alwinton away to the north and west, 

 steep ridges and high rounded knolls with bare grassy banks, 

 diversified but rarely by those same sweeps of grey or brick-red 

 porphyritic rock of which we have already spoken, a monotonous 

 and very lonely region, that seems to be given up almost entirely 

 to the sheep. We have given already a list of the plants of one 

 of the Alwinton cliff's, and must now take a final leave of the 

 porphyritic region. Between Alwinton and Bothbury, on the 

 north side of the river, the ground, stretching away from the 

 Coquet towards the head of the Aln, is flat and cultivated, 

 hardly anywhere exceeding 500 feet above sea-level. The low- 

 ness of this tract, when the stream lower down on the same 

 side is bordered by high heathery moorland, seems anomalous 

 to one accustomed to the gradually rising banks of hill that 

 usually margin the streams that flow from the Pennine chain 

 on the east. On the south side of the Coquet the physical 



