REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1902 253 



Appendix. 

 By Mr J. G. Goodchild. 



Much of the beauty of the scenery around Peebles is 

 connected with the nature of the rocks out of wliich the 

 hills and valleys have been shaped. In considering the 

 subject, however briefly, one must not lose sight of the very 

 important fact that nearly the whole of the surface relief 

 is the outcome of causes which are still in operation, and 

 whose mode of working can, in most cases, be easily studied 

 in detail on the spot. The hills have not been pushed up, 

 as many persons have supposed has been the case, nor has 

 volcanic action had much, if anything, to do with bringing 

 any of them into their present form. Their real nature can 

 best be comprehended by making the ascent of any one of 

 the higher eminences of the district, on a clear day, when 

 it is possible to see the summits of the hills around the 

 point of view to a distance of a few miles. Anyone who 

 will take the trouble to do this will see at once that the 

 hill upon which he stands is really part of a great upland 

 plain, which here falls a little below the general level, and 

 there rises a little above it. The valleys, which look so deep 

 and wide when one is travelling through them, look, from 

 this position, what they really are — merely slight depressions 

 which have been excavated out of the upland plain. The 

 hills, it will be seen, are simply the parts of the plain which 

 have not been carved into valleys. 



As a matter of fact the agents which have been chiefly 

 instrumental in carving the depressions within the upland area 

 we are considering, are simply what are comprehensively spoken 

 of as RAIN AND RIVERS. These have been aided to some 

 extent by the work of ice ; and the action of the whole 

 has been largely regulated by the elevation or depression 

 of the land, in relation to the sea level, by earth-movements. 

 As for the work of the sea, we may dismiss that entirely from 

 consideration when we are dealing with the evolution of the 



