Rev, John Walker on Greenlaw. 117 



of fire was active in the Hume district, and when perhaps 

 the Lammermoor range received a considerable elevation, but 

 before the appearance of its porphyry summits. 



Several trap dykes can be noticed passing north-eastwards 

 through the strata which appear to come from Hume, and 

 from the hills of East Gordon and Rummeltoun; and the 

 late formation of the Berwickshire Railway has both dis- 

 played some of these favourably, and has laid open large 

 deposits of amygdaloid and other volcanic products. 



Some difference of opinion, it appears to me, may reason- 

 ably be entertained with respect to the age of the sandstones 

 in the district. While to the west of the town and at Green- 

 side they belong to the old red, the stone in the quarry at 

 Catmoss, and also that down the river on the border of the 

 parish of Fogo, seem to require to be classed differently. 



An extensive deposit of peat moss, covering fully 400 acres, 

 occurs in the moor to the north of the town. Its general 

 appearance is barren, but there are patches in it of deep and 

 unsafe marsh, which may contain plants that have not as yet 

 been gathered there. 



Along the northern edge of this peat field, over its whole 

 kaims extent, a peculiar ridge-like formation of drift is very 

 noticeable, stretching, almost continuously, for about three 

 miles athwart the sullen level of the moor. It has some- 

 what the appearance of a railway embankment, and perhaps 

 challenges attention the more that it makes its appeal to 

 thought in a scene peculiarly monotonous and dreary. 



Opinions have been formed and expressed respecting the 

 nature of this formation, which it is now unnecessary to recall 

 and state. The closer attention which has been paid to it of 

 late, and the extent to which it has at one place been laid 

 open, have put an end to all difference of opinion here. It is 

 now, I believe, unreservedly admitted to be an aqueous 

 deposit, and the only question which seems to remain in a 

 doubtful state has respect to the mode of its formation — how 

 water, a current or currents, has been guided to deposit and 

 build up a narrow bank of gravel or sand to a height of 50 

 feet, with a breadth in some parts of not more than 140 feet 

 at the base, on a level plateau, not in a straight line, nor in 

 a sinuous line, but in every awkward variety of the crooked 

 form — one important bend being nearly if not quite a right 

 angle. 



The writer of the account of Greenlaw Parish, in the new 

 Statistical History of Scotland, suggests the only theory of 



