Ueport of Meetings for 188G. By J. Hardy. 380 



on the terrace, through their warfare with the storms and frosts 

 of successive years, that had led to the production of a multi- 

 plicity of shoots — some 20, less or more, being representative of 

 one stem — I asked Mr Winning to measure two of the mure 

 extraordinary, and he reports: — "Respectively 20 and 21 feet 

 high, circumference of each at 4 feet, 1 5 feet including all the 

 branches. They are trained upright. Both were laid flat by 

 the great snow-storm of November 1883, but soon recovered 

 their previous erectness." Mr Winning also laid his tape to the 

 Dule Tree, which is passed before the entrance to the house, and 

 has been snapped by wind. It is of ash, and there remains 28 

 feet of the trunk still standing ; the circumference at 4 feet is 

 16£ feet. It was guessed to be over 150 years old, but was 

 probably of greater age. A well-grown lime tree was also 

 measured ; circumference of stem at 4 feet gave 1 1 feet ; spread 

 of the branches 53 feet in diameter. 



Having thanked our obliging entertainers, the journey was 

 resumed up the Teviot by the Carlisle Road. Dr Murray's 

 Archaeological map indicates the finding of a cist by this road 

 near Branxholme, and then a camp. We then pass a little house 

 called "Scatter Penny" — once an ale-house for entertaining 

 drovers. It was here the quarrel between Sweet Milk Willie 

 and his opponent arose, and the haugh at Newmill where the 

 duel was fought, lies a little farther up the water, where the 

 spot was formerly marked by a thorn tree. The heroine of the 

 song of "The Braes of Branxholm," and the "Bonnie Lass of 

 Branxholm," was the daughter of " Jean the Ranter," a former 

 landlady of the ale-house, who captivated a Captain Maitland, 

 and was married to him. "By this alliance, which was con- 

 sidered so extraordinary in those days as to be partly attributed 

 to witchcraft on the part of her mother, the bonny lass became 

 the progenitrix of a family of gentry in Mid-Lothian." (Chambers' 

 Picture of Scotland). 



We were now opposite some of the deep sections of Boulder 

 Clay in the scaurs on the south bank of the Teviot, reaching on- 

 ward to Newmill-haugh and Dean-foot. One of the scaurs shows 

 a bed of fine sand, intervening between what is reckoned to be 

 an older and newer Boulder Clay. In connection with this 

 section Mr Waugh has furnished me with a summary of some 

 of the geological features of the ground we had been traversing. 

 "Professor James Geikie in his book on the Ice Age, shews us 



