Anniversary Address 15 



hanging Hindhope from the pass are called Kelso Steps. Pre- 

 vious to the reign of Edward I., the Kelso monks would neces- 

 sarily have intercourse by this pass with Eedesdale to remove 

 their tithe two year old colts and fillies from the haras or 

 stud of the Umfravilles in Eedesdale and Ootteneshope forests 

 (see Proc. ix. p. 458) ; and they may have caused stones for steps 

 to be placed on broken or swampy portions of the way. Nay 

 more, by this passage they would traverse the Kale at Towford, 

 which may have obtained its name from the ticklish operation 

 of transferring haltered young animals, or animals led with 

 ' tows " (ropes), from bank to bank across. I do not say that 

 this was so, but this is an apt way of accounting for the deriv- 

 ation of both words, for both circumstances may have happened. 

 There were two fords mentioned in 1 542 on the Tyne called respec- 

 tively " Towes bank," and " To wes forde," perhaps of identical 

 significance, in the first part with the ford on the Kale. * 



" At Hindhope," remarks Professor James Geikie, in a letter, 

 with which he has favoured me, " the Eoman road at the hill- 

 top runs upon a highly altered volcanic ash, which immediately 

 overlies Silurian. The porphyrite above the ash is generally a 

 purplish or reddish blue rock— often coarsely crystalline. At 

 the head of the Coquet you get Carboniferous Sandstones, etc., 

 resting on nearly vertical Silurian. In the neighbourhood of 

 Hindhope the Silurians are here and there fossiliferous — the 

 fossils shew that the rocks belong to the Upper Silurian. The 

 porphyrites and ashes are seen again and again lying abruptly 

 on the upturned edges of the Silurian." 



The road has, at this pass, been so diminished by land-slips 

 that it must be dangerous to take in a snow storm. We observed 

 as we wound along, that Poa annua occupied a great propor- 

 tion of the foot tracks beaten by sheep. The other grasses 

 were Scirpi (deer's hair), Nardus, and especially Juncus Squar- 

 rosus, (rose-bent or stool-bent). This Juncus, although when in 

 seed rejected by sheep, affords an early bite, much relished 

 by them in spring ; and is not profitless as many suppose. 

 (See Walker's " Essay on Natural History," p. 524 ; Johnston's 

 " Flora of the Eastern Borders," p. 200 ; "God's Treasure House 

 in Scotland," p. 227). Festuca ovina was the next most profuse 

 grass, and as we came among the flow -mosses, the hoary cotton- 

 grass, or moss crops, whose recuperative virtues in amending 

 * Hodgson's Hist, of Northumberland, Part III., vol. II., p. 239. 



