Report of Meetings. By James Hardy. 279 



seen of it were from Mousewald parish, Dumfriessliire. In 

 Northumberland it grows in North and South Tynedale. Inter- 

 mediate localities may now be looked for. 



MIDDLETON HALL. 



The meeting for Wooler and Cheviot centred in Middleton 

 Hall. With the exception of two hours at mid- day ^incessant 

 rain fell from morning till dark, the blasts increasing in energy 

 as the day advanced. To participate in the ample provision for 

 breakfast at the President's hospitable board, only one arrived — 

 Mr James Thomson, as the Club's visitor for the day. When it 

 cleared up about 12 a.m., while Mr Hughes rode to Wooler to 

 ascertain if there were any arrivals, Mr Thomson and I proceeded 

 up Langleyford vale as far as Langlee. The lull in the tempest 

 encouraged the attempt to make a few observations. 



The prospect from the top of Middleton Hall "bank always 

 commands admiration. The fine long sweep of the Galdgate, 

 broadly gravel-margined, along the green valley"- beneath the 

 steep, scooped-out bank, with its fern clad sides, its scattered 

 thorns, its breaks of close-cropt pasture, and its high terminal 

 planting, in which the gloomy hues of the pine intermingle, on 

 the one side ; and the rough broken pastoral 'slopes, with dark 

 level-topped alder groves clustered on the bottom swamps, and 

 the scattered trees or thickets of oak, hazel, thorn or grey willow, 

 wild briar or juniper, on the other, form a series of ever pleasing 

 pictures to the lover of Nature in her wild aspects. The hills 

 lift up their heads and beckon to us from afar ; and the way 

 opened up along the valley between its declivitous sides invites 

 the willing footsteps towards the upland recesses. 



When descending to Careburn Bridge we examined the section 

 of gravel by the roadside. There are small fragments of white 

 or greenish- white sandstone (Tuedian) and of greywacke mixed 

 with the predominant porphyritic constituents. Eemains of this 

 sandstone are rather widely dispersed along the lower flanks of 

 the hills. They occur in Wooler- common burn ; a large boulder 

 at the mouth of Old Middleton burn ; also in South Middleton 

 dean ; and other large blocks in the Upper Lill-burn nearly up 

 to the road that crosses to Ilderton Moor. It is not quite safe 

 to say whence these detached portions were derived. The 

 Tuedian occurs in situ in the fields between Wooler and Earle ; 

 and towards the north at a considerable elevation on Whitelaw 

 in the vicinity of Yevering Bell. Numerous minute fragments 



