28 Report of Meetings for 1879, by James Hardy. 



in tlie district is now gone. Its measurement in 1798 was as 

 follows : — The height of its trunk was 18 feet ; its circumference 

 at the bottom 26^- feet, at 9 feet above the ground 15 feet, and 

 immediately below the clefts 18 feet 2 inches. Calculated in the 

 common way this trunk contained 397 solid feet. At the height 

 of 1 8 feet three huge limbs branched out from it, each of them 

 equal to a large tree. These were calculated to contain at least 

 676 feet, making the whole tree 1073 feet, besides several smaller 

 branches not measurable.* In 1812 it measured 27 feet 8 inches 

 at the base, and was accounted the largest but two in Scotland.f 



At Morebattle the company had refreshments. Here it was 

 intended that two articles in brass or bronze were to have been 

 shewn to the Club. These had been found in Henshole among 

 the Cheviots, and were said to be braziers of an antique form. 

 They did not reach the place in time. The Eev. Mr Cowan, 

 Morebattle, who saw them, said he could compare them to 

 nothing but spurs of a very complicated form. They are now 

 preserved in the collection of Lady John Scott. 



A visit to Gateshaw and Corbet Tower had been contemplated ; 

 but for want of time this purpose was abandoned ; and the 

 greater number went on foot to see Linton church, passing 

 through the haugh at Morebattle Tofts. On the Kale here, the 

 Eev. Eobert Paul, guided by local knowledge, led some of the 

 botanically inclined members to the habitat of Arahis trifoUata (or 

 Turritis glabra), which is reputed to be an escape from the 

 minister of Howman's garden, situated a great way up the river. 

 Mr Brotherston got plants of it four miles further up the Kale, 

 on a spot where he had known it for over twenty years. Having 

 gained the public road, we might now say that we were on " the 

 highway to Linton." The green hiUs stand aU around the quiet 

 place, to screen it from the blasts, while Hownam Law occupies 

 the back-ground above some lesser heights. Many of the older 

 members are acquainted with the learned and ingenious article 

 on "Linton and its Legends," by Dr Charles Wilson of Edin- 

 burgh, preserved in one of the Club's volumes.J A portion of 

 this paper, as Dr Leishman remarks, " rests on an opinion now 

 abandoned, but which was for long accepted without suspicion 



* Dr Douglas's Agriculture of Roxburgh and Selkirk, p. 375. 



t Edinburgh Topographical and Antiquarian Magazine, p. 23. 



X Vol. iii., p. 21. 



