Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1867).djvu/107

Rh southward to the head of the Cairncleugh Burn, the first-mentioned peak 1600 feet, but the others only from 1000 feet to 1300 feet in altitude. In the 15 miles which it flows eastward before the Reedwater joins it, the ridge on the north has sunk to 800 feet. This is penetrated by one principal stream, the two branches of which are called the Tarret and Tarset. The Border Counties Railway now runs along the whole length of the dale and passes out at its head, forming one of the principal lines of communication between Newcastle and Edinburgh. Above Bellingham the population is thin, and the villages are very small. There are considerable plantations about Kielder Castle and Hesleyside, and workable collieries at Kielder and Falstone. In the neighbourhood of Smalesmouth is the station for Convallaria verticillata. On the south, between the North Tyne and Irthing, is a wide space of barren moor, crested in some places with edges of gritstone, which rises scarcely anywhere above 1000 feet, and on this side the ascent from the river is very gradual. At Bellingham the stream is from 30 to 40 yards across, and 375 feet above sea-level. Here it is joined by the Hareshaw Burn on the north, on which is Hareshaw Linn, the finest of the Northumbrian waterfalls. The waterfall is about a mile distant from the town. Just above the railway we have to climb over the shale heaps of the iron-works. Then the sides of the glen become steeper and we lose sight of the town and surrounding moors, and enter a winding ravine where uncertain wandering paths lead up and down amongst the trees and underwood. First the lower fall is reached, a perpendicular ledge of rock some 20 feet in height, over which the stream breaks in two places, the rocks continued on both sides a little distance down the glen. The principal fall is about half a mile further up, and is of a much more important character. On the left a precipice rises up without break to a height of nearly 100 feet, one sheer wall of massive rock, brown and cool towards the base, with green mosses in the crevices; higher up, where the sun sometimes catches it, bare brown and white, or yellow- stained with lichen, the summit clothed with ivy and bird-cherry, and waving branches of elm and rowan. The stream flows from an opening half-way down