202 Report of Meeting* for 1888. By J. Hardy. 



Canonbie. 



The meeting for the Canonbie district was held on September 

 12th. This was the Club's first visit to Dumfriesshire. The 

 meeting was sparsely attended ; but those who attended were 

 fully rewarded, for a more beautiful country has seldom been 

 visited by the Club. The Geological features were most interest- 

 ing, and presented a new field to those who came from the north 

 and east. The meeting place was also very accessible, so that 

 there was no excuse for absence on that score, and easy to get 

 away from, although not adapted for dining at, unless by staying 

 all night in the neighbourhood. The weather was most favourable 

 and from that day forward ameliorated till the year was crowned 

 with harvest. There was, however, a dim haze that obscured 

 the range of blue hills in the Lake country. Nothing could be 

 finer than the well- wooded and treed vale of Canonbie, and its 

 surrounding frame-work of rolling hills, and the wealth of 

 glittering streams. 



The meeting was at Biddings Junction, near the meeting of 

 the Liddel and Esk ; admittance to the woods being given from 

 the Railway by the Station Master who keeps a key. On this 

 side of the Liddel we were in Cumberland, and on the Netherby 

 estate. The Liddel and Esk are pure limpid streams with 

 gravelly margins. Epipactis latifolia was picked up in the wood 

 which was very moist. Polygonum, acre was very plentiful on the 

 neglected roadway ; and I never saw more of it than in the 

 cultivated fields bordering the wood. The soil on the steep 

 wooded bank is of Red Sandstone origin. The native trees here 

 are Alder, Birch, and Hazel on all the streams, mixed with Oaks 

 and Ashes and planted Beeches. Access to the Mote of Liddel 

 was obtained by a footpath at the top of the wood. This was a 

 central sub-conical high green mount, forming a prominent 

 object from the vale below. Its features were chiefly natural, 

 but they had been dressed off by human labour, and surrounded 

 by a deep moist ditch, which had an entrance at the south side. 

 The eastern pointed section appeared to be composed of gravel, 

 sand and soil ; a flattened portion of the hillock, had at its west 

 corner a subquadrangular area, enclosed by an earthen wall as if 

 to protect cattle. To the west, another and separate but lower 

 division of the hill had been fenced by an external stone wall ; 

 and its area had once been planted with Scotch firs, the stumps 



