Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1867).djvu/104

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The numerous east-flowing streams which join to form the Wansbeck come from a tract which, from Simonside towards the Tyne, stretches for 10 or 12 miles through the heart of the county, a tract of very thinly-inhabited low grassy moorish country, the ridges running west and east, not more than from 600 to 800 feet in elevation, with very little crag upon them, but often covered with plantations of Scotch fir, spruce, and larch, and the hollows in various stages of transition between pasture and grassy moor. The northern fork rises in Bodle Moss, on the southern slope of Simonside, and joins a streamlet from Darden Rig to form the Font. Amongst the swamps of the upper part of this branch the Andromeda grows; and Chartner's Lough, a little mountain tarn near the head of the northern fork, is the station for Nuphar intermedium. This drains the country between Long Horsley and Elsdon, and is the most wooded fork of the river, flowing from the moors south-eastward past Nunnykirk, Netherwitton, Pigdon Woods, and Newton Park, to join the main stream at Mitford. The next fork comes from the east slope of the Ottercaps and the moors round Catcherside and Harwood. It is a small fir plantation just north of the railway, near the head of one of the branches of this fork, that yields the Linnæa. Rothley Lake is a tarn amplified by artificial means at the head of another branch, and lower down are Rothley Castle and Hartburn Grange. The main branch begins 2 miles eastward of Reedsmouth and flows through Sweethope Lough, a moorland tarn said to cover 180 acres, with swamps round it of Typha, Carex ampullacea, and Sparganium ramosum, to Kirkwhelpington, south of which the basalt crops out prominently in Thockrington and Bavington Crags, the only