Report of Meetings for 1887. By J. Hardy. 41 



recently, an expelled pair left the heronry and built on a tree in 

 front of Harbottle Hall. 



Before reaching Harbottle, the party at the end of the planta- 

 tion on the right hand, turned up into a green field to ascend to 

 the Drake Stone, passing into a bare rock-strewn moor, up a 

 narrow sometimes stone paved foot-path. Most of the hill-stones 

 were "yird-fasts,'' but the loose ones were considerably rolled 

 and rounded. From this track we looked into all the fern-clad 

 gullies over the broad concave face of the Beacon crags, with their 

 sprinkling of mountain-ashes. Near the top, the dwarf bilberiy 

 excluded the heather, showing that we had reached its limit. 

 The Drake Stone, an immense mass thirty feet high, appears 

 to be part of the rock of the hill. The seams in it present much 

 false bedding. Mr H. Miller when mentioning the perched- 

 blocks and ice-moved stones of the district, thus refers to it: "The 

 Drake Stone of Harbottle is a gigantic semi-detached block of 

 grit close beside its out-crop, perhaps shifted a few yards by ice, 

 or perhaps by the downward creep due to changes of temperature." 

 (Memoir on the Geology of Otterburn and Elsdon, p. 105). The 

 rocks all round Harbottle are of the Fell Sandstone. We had 

 no time to scrutinise the extensive view of Upper Coquetdnle 

 mapped before us. E,ain was gathering over the heights above 

 the Wilkwoods, and we hastened down to see the tarn in the 

 hollow gorge beneath us, before it should reach us. The malevo- 

 lent spirit of the lake would not permit its secrets to be revealed, 

 without a protest, and had summoned the moist mists of the south- 

 western hills to its succour. A stretch of long heather, and of 

 sphagnum, marking a former extension of the lake, intervened. 

 The way led across rocks, or along narrow footpaths strewed with 

 fine white sand, or rounded quartz pebbles, the residue of 

 ancient rock debris. Drosera rotundifolia, (Sundew), and a dainty 

 tawny Agaric grew among the Sphagnum. Buckbean, Equisetum 

 limosum, and a Carex (vesicaria '?) each of different shades of green, 

 grew on the south and west margins, and crowberry and rushes 

 where it was more solid. Erica tetralix with white blossom was 

 gathered. The lonely tarn is of considerable area ; the water is 

 always pure, there being a spring in the centre. No Diatomes 

 could be detected in the Sphagnum. The depth of water is 

 unknown. It used to be said that the water is so cold, that those 

 who attempt to swim across, receive such a shock, that they are 

 paralysed and sink. There is no recollection, however, of any 



