808 Anniversary Address. 



Hardy, again, however, comes to the rescue, and to his notes 

 I am again beholden for the following account of an interest- 

 ing and successful meeting. 



" The day on the whole was favourable, excepting that a 

 few slight showers rather dimmed the prospect. 



" Hume Crags is a ridge of augitic trap, running west 

 and east, above one of those longitudinal depressions which 

 accompany the outburst of trap ; as if there had been emptied 

 from beneath the trough, much of the material that had 

 been protruded upwards. The ridge is heaved into humps, 

 with passes across; the passes lie about W.S.W., the rock 

 having given way nearly at the joints, which are E. and W., 

 and N. and S. The rock is rudely pillared, the pillars being 

 broken a short way above the surface ; and when seen from 

 a little distance, the green hillocks, studded with the grey 

 projections, resemble pieces of crystallized spar of exagger- 

 ated proportions. The rock is a crystalline augitic trap, or 

 greenstone, having a green tint in the fracture, and contains 

 numerous acicular felspar crystals — very little olivine being 

 apparent on the exposed surface. The rock shews trifling 

 debris, or glitter, and that chiefly on the northern side. It 

 decays sparingly also ; but where the atmospheric action has 

 penetrated the rock, the surface oxidises, and the pillars 

 break into square sections, which scale off at the corners, 

 forming rounded yolks. The water being flavoured with the 

 ochre, is not commendable. Being of inconsiderable height, 

 the Flora is poor. In the fissures grow fox gloves, Oxalis, 

 dog-violet, bilberry, wood sage, Hieracium murorum, and 

 blue-bells in profusion ; and Sedum acre, and mother-of- 

 thyme, on the bare surface. Bryum crudum is the best 

 moss. Hedwigia ciliata also grows here. The notable 

 lichens are Parmelia ctmspersa, P. aquila, Squamaria saxi- 

 cola, Alectoria jubata, and Sphcerophoro?i coralloides. Viola 

 lutea occupies the intervals of the whinny ground; and near 

 some of the runnels, Sedwn villosum used to flourish in 

 former years. 



