372 Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 



moraines. When we encounter heaps of loose rocks on the 

 hill-sides, where they occupy limited spaces, they generally 

 belong to some dismantled crag which has been overtopped 

 by its own dislocated materials during the present era ; and 

 by a little search we discover the upper extremities of the 

 parent rock. But it is otherwise here ; their position shows 

 that they have travelled, and a deep soil interposes between 

 them and the fundamental rock — as the thriving trees and 

 the rank growth of ferns among them bear testimony. In 

 mineralogical character, these boulders correspond with the 

 rocks adjacent to the burn-sides ; but so do all those, with a 

 slight diversity of crystallisation on this slope of the hill, up 

 to the Crags towards the summit on the S.W. side. It is 

 among these high crags, which at present sweep in a semi- 

 circle round a lowered vacant area, and amongst which the, 

 materials for a still active dilapidation — aided by a long 

 retention of the winter's snow — are not yet exhausted, that I 

 would seek the primary seat of many of those transported 

 blocks ; these, and a band of rock once continuous between 

 them and Hedgehope, across the head of the valley, the 

 varieties of rock on each side being almost identical. These 

 crags lie a mile or two to the west or north-west ; and this 

 direction is in accordance with the distribution of travelled 

 blocks all over the moors beneath, far down into the low 

 country, as well as with the portion of this series of blocks 

 which stretch along for those crags. That the reference to 

 that source is correct, appears from the occurrence among 

 them of a peculiar fine grained granitic porphyry, with pale 

 pink or whitish felspar, resembling an Aberdeen granite, 

 which occupies in its native site the borders of the deep 

 ravine called the Long Cleugh, descending from those crags. 

 It is an unmistakeable rock, and can be identified all down 

 the Langleyford vale among the rolled blocks exposed by the 

 burn. This being the case, these blocks, for the most part, 

 have been swept not down the hill direct, but across the 

 present declivity. But there must be added to them the 

 vast array of dislodged stones that cumber most places of the 

 hill, beneath the turf, composing quite a pavement between 

 the turf and the soil. These are very abundant in the bogs, 

 and constantly obstruct the drainers when digging foot-drains. 

 Several of them turned out during this operation are whiter 

 than any rock now in situ, and give the false idea of being 



