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



who have tried the experiment, having been drowned, and several 

 have accomplished thefeat. Somewill say that the water which has 

 no visible outlet permeates the intermediate strata, and re-appears 

 at Our Lady's Well at Holystone. The pebbly sandstones of the 

 Fellstone series, "are sometimes," says Mr Miller, "gritty enough 

 for mill-stones, like the pebbly grit of Millstone Edge, beside the 

 gloomy tarn among the Harbottle Hills. Discarded mill-stones* 

 can still be seen lying about the 'Edge ' in various stages of 

 manufacture." The sand on the shores of the tarn is described as 

 " sharp and suitable for scythes." (Memoir, etc., p. 122). There 

 was barely time to note the lichens attached to the peaty soil and 

 the surface of the flat rocks ; such as Cladonia furcata, Sphtero- 

 phoron coralloides, Parmelia soxaUlis and P. omphalodes, a dark 

 thallused Lecidea, and L. geographiea (no doubt there are plenty 

 more), when the blast swept down upon us like a fury, and every 

 one crept as far as he could out of its reach into the rock -crevices. 

 A fine range of white sandstone cliff like a built wall, crossed 

 horizontally a long black ridge in front of us, with subsidiary 

 shorter ranges, reminding one of a display of broken auroral 

 clouds ; the interspaces between them were of black heather. A 

 Ring-ouzel crossed over us, and several Meadow Pipits rested on 

 the heather. 



The mists lifting intermittently revealed that the hill we were 

 on, was isolated by a deep interval from the lower heights 

 opposite us in the south-west, on which the trees and cleughs and 

 the two shepherd's houses of East and West Wilkwood, amidst 

 a stretch of green pastures, showed a much more attractive aspect 

 than they wear when they come out in broad daylight. We had 

 intended on leaving this rocky environment to traverse, if we 

 found them passable, the heathery or bare heights, between this 



* Owing to the rain and the hasty retreat the site of the quarry for mill- 

 stones escaped observation. " It is cat out of the side of the hill," says 

 the Rev. A. Scott, " and is square in form, and near the entrance are lying 

 two mill-stones, about 4 feet across and 12 inches deep, apparently ready 

 for removal, but they seem to have lain many years in their present position.' ' 

 (Guide to Rothbury, p. 30). Mr G. H. Thompson supplies fnller information 

 about these mill-stones. " Along the west side of the lake mill-stones used 

 to be quarried. I counted twenty one morning, unfinished ; some of them 

 partly formed in the solid rock. They were used in the mills at Holystone, 

 Barra (or Barrow) and Netherton— mostly for barley. For shelling the 

 barley they were used perpendicularly, for oats, horizontally. This I had 

 from Robert Simmons, a man of 70 years of age, who himself remembered 

 their being in use." — (Sept. 12th 1883). 



