Report of Meetings for 1891. By Dr J. Hardy. 31 5 



Proceedings, xi., p. 90). WheeliBg round, we emerge on a flat 

 winding valley, occupying an opening of the hills. Across the 

 space on the right hand, a very fine branching Elm overshadows 

 the gap of a short ravine. Pretty continuous along the face is 

 a fine thicket of Hazel, Birch, and Sloe-thorn. On the left the 

 hillside is lofty and stepp, broken with short red fissures, old 

 earth-slips, and rugged heaps, which are sprinkled over with 

 Juniper and Whin. As we penetrate farther the braes on the 

 right are densely clad with luxuriant Brakens, and tufted with 

 detached Birch plots ; varied by grassy and Primrose banks in 

 spring; now by spouty swamps, yellowed with masses of 

 Hypnum commuiatum, or darkened by spritty growths, and here 

 and there enlivened by the flowering catkins of Cnrex laevigata, 

 and the rose-hued bloom of the Willow-herbs. It would 

 require a series of photographs to preserve the many pictures 

 that here charm the famy. Tlie hau^hs have here been eon- 

 verted into a bowling green. The left-hand side continues the 

 steepest and barest, and most unadorned. Out of it issues a 

 deep winding woody sided ravine, only to be passed upwards 

 by placing the feet on the slippery projections of its conglomerate 

 walls. It has been explored, (Club's Proceedings, ubi sup., 

 p. 88) ; for this is Cauld Burn. 



Wester Aikengall, the shepherd's cottage, looking out from 

 the unequal concavities that surround the mouth of Shippath 

 dean, was appointed the rendezvoiis for the carriages, when the 

 task of the day had been surmounted. There is a flat here, 

 once an Alder bog, now growing corn, and an extensive group 

 of sheep-folds near the base of the steep hillside, along which 

 the slanting road rises to Aikengall farm steading. This stands 

 on a projecting knoll, and is protected from the N.E. by a fir 

 plantation. From this vantage ground there is an outlook 

 through a gap as far as Siccar and Fastcastle points ; the 

 towering Stottencleugh hill blocks up the prospect northwards. 

 The end of Stottencleugh cottages is visible, and a part of the 

 dried up broad stone-btrewed channel of the stream. The trees 

 on Cocklaw farm are visible beyond, and higher up Wightman 

 hill and its cleughs and red " Cribs." But the great sight here 

 was a hillside on a magnificent scale, clad from ridge to base 

 with purple heather in unimpaired blossom, such as one seldom 

 encounters, even among these extended wilds. But an ominous 

 gloom gathered behind it, which burst in a heavy shower, which 



