Report of Meetings for 1890. \iy i)r J. Hardy. 07 



or uofc caunot be ascertained. The Quern is somewhat triaugalar in form 

 and flat, and seems to have been untouched by tools except to make the 

 two necessary perforations in it." 



Here is the old road from Jedburgh by the Slitrig to Liddes- 

 dale. Part of our i*oute lay along it from where Ruberslaw 

 came in sight to a little past Shankend Station, and was the 

 same as that taken by Queen Mary on her famous ride from 

 Jedburgh to Hermitage. 



Beyond Earlside Shiels farm we had reached a partly culti- 

 vated, partly still robed in native heath, broad expanse of flatter 

 land. Here Stonedge House had come into view, and away in 

 the distance the peak of Ruberslaw and its shoulder-belt of trees, 

 and the site of Sheeplaw Cross. On the right hand lay old, once 

 cultivated ridges, now abandoned to pasturage, with sheep 

 grazing among the usurping brackens. The ameliorations on the 

 Berryfell farms show the advantages of recent reclamations from 

 the waste ; but from the greenness of the crops it may be con- 

 jectured the harvests here will be late and protracted. 



Penchrise Pen is an inland hill out of range with an unequal 

 broken green peak. Here a lonely burn winds up a grassy 

 hollow, and Shankend Station becomes visible ; but before we 

 were opposite it the high steep hill-sides on the east have closed 

 in and narrowed the pass ; their green, almost perpendicular sides 

 here and there being roughened witli water gullies, glitters, 

 quarries, and outcrops of greywacke crags. The scattered 

 shrubby bushes are mostly of Blackthorn. Wheatears were 

 startled from among the rocky debris at the base as we passed, 

 and what appeared to be Grey Linnets. In other respects the 

 Avi-fauna was poor along this desolate track ; a few Grouse rose 

 on the Berryfell moors, and a solitary AVater Ouzel flitted along 

 the Slitrig, which had now been diminished to the size of a 

 mountain burn. The general aspect of the lower ground was 

 rough grassy and boggy pasture, of which the more luxuriant 

 portions had been mown for hay, which was rotting in the swathes 

 owing to recent wet weather. Clumps of giant leaved Butter-bur 

 flourished by the stream sides, and Carduus heterophyllus was pre- 

 valent. Plantations of firs were dispersed among the drier, 

 lower elevations. The Langside burn originating from behind 

 the Maiden Paps, is a fine example of a serpentine glittering 

 mountain stream in the utmost simplicity of unadorned Nature. 

 Sheep were spread in most directions. In front of us the 



