Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1867).djvu/108

90 between this cliff and its counterpart on the opposite side, forming, not a large waterfall, but one where nature has made the most of the volume of water she has had to work with, for the the cliff, contrary to the ordinary plan in the North of England cascades of small side-streams, projects at the base considerably more than at the ledge, so that the water falls down an irregular slope of hard gritstone rock, the jagged projections of which break it into foam and spray, and innumerable sparkling eddies. The tall slightly-overhanging side-cliffs of the glen converge crescent-wise towards the fall and shut in a cool ravine where such plants as woodruff, golden saxifrage, Cardamine sylvatica, and Campanula latifolia luxuriate, and where we may gather oak fern, beech fern, and Trollius, Rubus saxatilis, Epilolium angustifolium, and Crepis succisaefolia.

After the junction of the Reed water and North Tyne the stream and dale run south and rather south-east for 14 miles. The ridges on each side are not more than 400 feet above the river, and for the northern half of the 14 miles especially there is but little of the dale character. The bank of the stream is often steep and pleasantly-wooded, and there are several villages of considerable size (Wark, Barrasford, Chollerton, Wall, Humshaugh), and halls and castles at Haughton, Chipchase, Simonburn, and Nun wick by the side of the river, or hidden amongst the trees. The most considerable woods of this lower part of North Tynedale are those of Countess Park, near Reedsmouth, and of Chipchase, Nunwick, Chesters, and Warden Hill. On the east side of the dale, above Barrasford, the basalt stands out prominently at the top of the bank, with a precipitous escarpment facing the north (Gunnerton Crags), south of which the bank of the dale is steeper and the ridge more hill-like. On the west Wark Burn rises on the edge of the county and flows for 10 miles eastward through the moors before it joins the main stream. The basalt shows itself upon its banks at Rose's Bower and forms a small waterfall, but the principal basaltic cliff on the west side of the river is further south, and does not belong to this drainage tract. One of the forks of the branch that joins the Tyne at Nunwick, comes from the lakes on the north side of the Roman