its climax, and the ice-sheet began to melt away for the last time,
the tops of the hills then once more became uncovered, and large
blocks, detached by the action of the frost, fell upon the surface of
the glaciers, and were borne down the valleys, some of them to become
stranded here and there on hill-slopes, others to be carried far away
from the Cheviot area and dropped at last over Northumberland and
Durham, or even further south. As the melting of the ice continued, and
the glacier of the Tweed ceased to reach the sea, great accumulations
of gravel and sand were formed. Underneath the ice, sub-glacial streams
ploughed out the till, and paved their hidden courses with gravel
and sand. In summer-time, the whole surface of the Tweed glacier was
abundantly washed with water, which, pouring down by clefts and holes
in the ice, swelled all the sub-glacial streams and rivers. At the
same time, floods descending from the Lammermuirs and the Cheviots,
pushed with them vast quantities of shingle, gravel, and sand, part of
which was swept upon the surface of the Tweed glacier, while much seems
to have gathered along its flanks, forming banks and ridges running
parallel with the course of the valley.
At last the time came when the ice had fairly vanished from the lower
reaches of the Tweed, and we now walk over its bed and mark the
long ridges and banks of shingle and gravel that were formed by the
sub-glacial streams and rivers, and the somewhat similar accumulations
that gathered along the sides of the glacier at the foot of the
Lammermuir Hills. Here and there, also, we note the heaps (_i.e._
moraines) of shingle, earth, clay, and débris, with large erratics
which travelled on the surface of the ice, and were dropped upon the
ground as that ice melted away. All the loose erratics that lie at
the surface in the lower reaches of the Tweed valley have come from
the west. Some of them rest upon hard rock, others upon till, and yet
others crown the tops and slopes of gravel and sand hillocks, or appear
in low mounds of morainic origin.
In the valleys of the Cheviot Hills one traces the footsteps of the
retiring glaciers in mounds and hummocks of rude earthy débris, blocks,
and rock-rubbish. These are terminal moraines, and they indicate
certain pauses in the recession of the ice. The most remarkable
examples occur in the valley of the Kale Water at Blinkbonny, a
mile or so above the village of Eckford. At that place a bank of
morainic matter at one time blocked up the valley of the Kale, and
thus formed a wide and extensive lake that stretched up to and beyond
Morebattle. Numerous curious hillocks of gravel and sand are banked
against the moraine, and point to the action of the flood-waters
that escaped from the melting glacier. Other gravelly moraine mounds
occur higher up the same valley, as near Grubbit Mill. These last
tell us of a time when the Kale glacier had retreated still further,
so as to have its terminal front near where Morebattle now is.
Wreaths and hummocks of gravel and sand, extending from Grubbit to
the north-east, along the hollow in the hills that leads to Yetholm
Loch, indicate the course taken by a portion of the torrents that
escaped from the ice in summer-time. In other hill-valleys, similar
indications of ancient local glaciers may be seen. Some of the most
conspicuous of these appear upon the slopes and in the high valleys
within the drainage-areas of the Jed and the Kale. They consist
chiefly of mounds and hillocks, made up of coarse earthy débris and
rock-rubbish; sometimes these are solitary and rest in the throat of
a valley, at other times they are scattered all over the hill-slopes
and valley-bottom. One can have no doubt as to what they mean: they
indicate clearly the presence of insignificant glaciers that were
soon to vanish away. The larger and better-defined mounds are true
terminal moraines, while the scattered heaps of rubbish point out
for us the beds in which the glaciers lay. Thus, from the sea-coast
up to the highest ridge of this border country, we follow the spoor
of the melting ice; passing from massive and wide-spread deposits of
till, gravel, and sand, and angular débris in the low-grounds, up
to insignificant heaps and scatterings of rock-rubbish and angular
boulders at the higher levels of the country.
Several more or less extensive flats in the hill-valleys indicate the
former presence of lakes which have become obliterated by the action of
the streams. But by far the most conspicuous example of such silted-up
lakes is that of the Kale valley, to which reference has already
been made. In the later stages of the Ice Age that river-valley must
have existed as a lake from Marlfield up to and beyond Morebattle.
Indeed, there is evidence to show that even within historical times a
considerable lake overspread the flat grounds in this neighbourhood.
The name _Morebattle_ is supposed to mean the "village by the lake,"
and, up to a few years ago, there was a sheet of water called Linton
Loch a little to the east of Morebattle. But this has been drained by
the proprietor, and is now represented by only two insignificant pools.
The present course of the Kale between Marlfield and Kalemouth is of
post-glacial age--the old pre-glacial and interglacial course being
filled up with drifted materials. As the appearances at this place are
somewhat typical of many of the valleys of the Cheviot district, I may
briefly summarise the history of the Morebattle lake.
Before the advent of the last great age of ice the Kale would seem
to have flowed from Marlfield, close to the line now followed by the
turnpike road as far as Easter Wooden, after which it passed near the
present sites of Blinkbonny and Mosstower, and so on to the Teviot,
which it joined some little distance above Kalemouth. During the Ice
Age many of the old river-courses were completely choked up with clay,
stones, and gravel, so that when the ice melted away the rivers did
not always or even often regain their old channels. Thus, in the
case of the Kale, we find that the present course of the river below
Marlfield is of recent or post-glacial age, having been excavated by
the river since the close of the glacial epoch. The old or pre-glacial
course lies completely choked up and concealed under the rubbish shot
into it at a time when glacier-ice filled all the valley of the Kale
down to Marlfield. At this latter place the Kale glacier seems to have
made a considerable pause--it ceased for some time to retreat--and
thus a heavy bank of gravel, sand, shingle, earth, blocks, and angular
rubbish gathered in front of it, and obliterated the old river-course
into which they were dropped. When the glacier at last disappeared, a
lake was formed above the morainic dam that closed the valley below
Marlfield, and the outflow of the lake took place at a point lying
some little distance to the north of the old or pre-glacial course of
the Kale. By slow degrees the river excavated a new channel for itself
in the Old Red Sandstone rocks, and in doing so gradually lowered the
level of the waters. This and the silting action of the Kale and its
feeders slowly converted the lake-hollow into a broad alluvial flat
through which the river now winds its way.
Another extensive lake seems to have occupied the vale of the Teviot
between Jedfoot and Eckford, and similar old lake-beds occur in several
of the hill-valleys. One good example is seen in the valley of the
Oxnam Water, where the flat tract that extends from the old village of
Oxnam up to the foot of the Row Hill indicates the former presence of
a lake which has been drained by the stream cutting for itself a gorge
in Silurian greywackés and shales. In many other valleys it is easy to
see that the streams do not always occupy their pre-glacial courses,
and some of the old forsaken courses are still patent enough. Thus,
a glance at the hollow that extends from Mossburnford on the Jed to
Hardenpeel on the Oxnam is enough to convince one that in pre-glacial,
and probably in early post-glacial times also, a considerable stream
has flowed from what is now the vale of the Jed into the valley of the
Oxnam.
In all the valleys we meet with striking evidence to show that the
streams and rivers must formerly have been larger than they are
now. Certain banks and ridges of gravel fringe the valley-slopes at
considerable heights, and indicate the action of deeper and broader
currents than now make their way towards the sea. It is probable that
these high-level gravel terraces date their existence back to the close
of the Ice Age, when local glaciers still lingered in some of the
mountain-valleys, and when in summer-time great floods and torrents
descended from the hills.
An extremely humid climate seems to have characterised Scotland even
in post-glacial times, as may be gathered from the phenomena of her
peat-mosses. Very little peat occurs on the Scottish side of the
Cheviots, and it is conspicuous chiefly on the very crest of the hills,
where it attains a thickness that varies from a foot or two up to five
or six yards. Here and there we detect the remains of birch under the
peat, but the peat itself is composed chiefly of bog-moss and heather.
The evidence so abundantly supplied by the peat-mosses in other parts
of Scotland shows that after the Ice Age had passed away the Scottish
area became clothed with luxuriant forests of oak, pine, and other
trees. At that time the British Islands appear to have been joined to
themselves and the Continent across the upraised beds of the Irish Sea
and the German Ocean. Races of men who used polished stone implements
and sailed in canoes that were hollowed out of single oaks inhabited
the country, together with certain species of oxen (now either extinct
or domesticated), the elk, the beaver, the wolf, and other animals,
such as the dog and the sheep, which are still indigenous. The climate
was more excessive then than it is now--the summers being warmer and
the winters colder. By-and-by, however, submergence ensued, the great
wooded plain that seems once to have extended between Britain and the
Continent disappeared below the waves, and the climate of this country
became more humid. The old forests began to decay and the peat-mosses
to increase, until by-and-by large areas in the low-grounds passed
into the condition of dreary moor and morass, and even the brushwood
and stunted trees of the hills died down and became enveloped in a
mantle of bog-moss. A study of the present condition of the Scottish
peat-mosses leads one to believe that the rate of increase is now much
exceeded by the rate of decay, and that the eventual disappearance of
the peat that clothes hill-tops and valley-bottoms is only a question
of time. Draining and other agricultural operations have no doubt
influenced to some extent this general decay of the peat-mosses; but
there is reason to suspect that the change of climate, to which the
decay of the peat is due, may really be owing to some cosmical cause.
Quite recently an accomplished Norwegian botanist has come to similar
conclusions regarding the peat-mosses of the Scandinavian peninsula.
We have now traced the geological history of the Cheviot district
down to the "Recent Period." From this point the story of the past
must be continued by the archæologist, and into his province I will
not trespass further than to indicate some of the more remarkable
traces which the early human occupants of the upland valleys left
behind them. Before doing so, however, I may briefly recapitulate the
general results we have obtained from our rapid review of the glacial
and post-glacial deposits. A study of these has taught us that the
Cheviot Hills and the adjoining low-grounds participated in those
arctic conditions under the influence of which all Scotland and a
large portion of England were buried beneath a wide-spread _mer de
glace_. The Cheviots themselves were completely smothered under a mass
of glacier-ice which extended across the vale of the Tweed, and was
continuous over the Lammermuirs with the vast sheet that filled all the
great lowlands of central Scotland. But although the Cheviots were thus
overwhelmed, they yet served to divide the ice-flow, for we find that
the gelid masses moved outwards from the hills towards the valley of
the Tweed, turning gradually away to east and south-east to creep over
the north part of England. How far south the ice-sheet reached has not
yet been determined, but its _moraine profonde_ or till may be traced
to the edge of the Thames valley; and I have picked up in Norfolk
ice-worn fragments of igneous rock, which have been derived from
the Cheviots themselves, showing that Scottish ice actually invaded
the low-grounds south of the Wash. Such severe glacial conditions,
after continuing for a long time, were interrupted more than once by
intervening periods characterised by a milder and more genial climate.
The great _mer de glace_ then melted out of the valleys, and for
aught that we can say the snow and ice may even have vanished from
the hills themselves. Vegetation now covered the country, and herds
of the mammoth, the old extinct ox, the Irish elk, the reindeer, the
horse, and probably other creatures, roamed over the now deserted
beds of the glaciers. It was probably at this time that Palæolithic
man lived in Britain. He was contemporaneous with lions, elephants,
rhinoceroses, hippopotami, mammoths, reindeer, and other animals of
southern and northern habitats, the former living in England when the
climate was genial, but being replaced by the northern species when
the temperature began again to fall, and snow and glaciers once more
reappeared and crept downwards and outwards from the hills. Towards
the close of the interglacial period the land became submerged to a
considerable extent, and species of arctic shells lived over the sites
of the drowned land where the mammoth and its congeners had flourished.
By-and-by the cold so far increased that another great ice-sheet filled
up the shallow sea, and as it slowly ground over the face of the land
and the sea-bottom, it scoured out and demolished to a large extent all
loose fluviatile, lacustrine, and marine accumulations. When at last
the ice melted away, it left the ground cumbered with stony clay, and
with much gravel and sand and morainic débris. It is underneath these
deposits that we yet obtain now and again fragments of the life of that
interglacial epoch. But in all the regions visited by the last great
incursion of the _mer de glace_, such relics are comparatively rare; it
is only when we get beyond the districts that were overwhelmed that the
ancient interglacial remains are well preserved. Beyond the southern
extremity reached by the latest general ice-sheet--that is to say, in
the regions south of the Humber, we find the country often sprinkled
with tumultuous heaps and wide-spread sheets of gravel and brick-earth,
which seem to owe their origin to the floods and torrents that escaped
from the melting ice. These waters, sweeping over the land, carried
along with them such relics of man and beast as lay at the surface,
washing away interglacial river-deposits, and scattering the materials
far and wide over the undulating low-grounds of central and eastern
England. Mr. S. B. J. Skertchly, of the Geological Survey of England,
has shown that such is the origin of the so-called "river-gravels"
with ancient flint implements and mammalian remains in the districts
watered by the Little Ouse, the Waveney, and other rivers in that part
of England. These gravels could not possibly have been deposited by
the present rivers, for they are found capping the hills at a height
of more than eighty feet above the sources of the streams. The whole
aspect of the gravels, indeed, betokens the action of rapid floods and
torrents, such as must have been discharged abundantly in summer-time
from the melting ice-sheet that lay at no great distance to the north.
When the ice-sheet vanished away, it left the ground covered thickly
in many places with its various deposits. Rivers and streams were thus
often debarred from their old channels, and were forced to cut out for
themselves new courses, partly in drifted materials, and partly in
solid rock. A number of lakes then existed which have since been silted
up. So long as glaciers lingered in the hill-valleys, the rivers seem
to have flowed in greater volume than they now do. By-and-by the bare
and treeless country became clothed with a luxuriant forest-growth,
and was tenanted by animals, many of which are still indigenous to
our country, while others have become locally extinct, such as wolf,
beaver, and wild boar. In certain of the old lake-beds of the Cheviot
district numerous remains of red-deer and other animals have been
turned out in the search for marl, and in land drainage and reclamation
operations--the red-deer antlers being sometimes of noble dimensions.
It seems probable that in early post-glacial times our country was
joined to the Continent and shared in a continental climate, the
summers being then warmer and the winters colder than now.
The men who lived in Britain after the final disappearance of the great
glaciers used stone implements, which were often polished and highly
finished, and they sailed in canoes, being probably a race of active
hunters and fishers. They belong to the archæologist's "Neolithic" or
new-stone period--the "Palæolithic" or old-stone period being of much
older date, and separated, as I believe, from Neolithic times by the
intervention of the last cold epoch of the Ice Age.
To the forest epoch succeeded a time when the climate became very
humid, a result which may have been due in large part to the separation
of Britain from the Continent. It was then that the ancient forests
began to decay, and peat-mosses to increase. How long such humid
conditions of climate characterised the country we can hardly say, but
we know that nowadays our peat-mosses do not grow so rapidly as they
once did, and indeed almost everywhere the rate of decay is greater
than the rate of increase. This points to a further change of climate,
and brings us at once face to face with the present.
And now a few words, in conclusion, as to the old camps and other
remains that occur so abundantly in the valleys of the Cheviot Hills.
In many of the hill-valleys, especially towards their upper reaches,
as in the valleys of the Kale and the Bowmont, almost every hill is
marked by the presence of one or more circular or oval camps or forts.
They are generally placed in the most defensible positions, on the very
tops of the hills or on projecting spurs and ridges. Most of them are
of inconsiderable dimensions, and could not have afforded protection
to any large number of men, for many hardly exceed one hundred feet in
diameter. Not a few consist of only a single circular or oval rampart
with an external ditch--the rampart being composed of the rude débris
which was dug out to form the ditch. Others, however, are not only
much larger (five to six hundred feet in diameter), but surrounded, in
whole or in part, with two or more ramparts separated by intervening
ditches; and I have noticed that as a rule the side which must have
been most easily assailable was protected by several ramparts rising
one above the other. From the extraordinary number of these hill-forts
one has the impression that the upper valleys of the Cheviots must
at one time have been thickly peopled, probably in pre-Roman times.
It is easy to see that the camps or forts overlooking a valley often
bear a certain relation to each other, as if the one had been raised
to support the other, and not infrequently we can trace well-marked
intrenchments extending across a hill-ridge, or along a hill-slope
for a distance of not much short of a mile, and evidently having some
strategic connection with the forts or camps in their vicinity. I found
no trace of any "dwellings," either near the forts or in the vicinity
of the terraces. The only indications of what may have been the walls
of such appear within a fortified camp, called the Moat Hill, at
Buchtrig. This is an isolated knoll of rock, which has been strongly
fortified--large slabs and blocks of the porphyrite of which it is
composed having been wedged out with infinite pains to form circular
ramparts. The "walls" are of course nearly level with the ground and
grassed over, but they indicate little square enclosures, which may
very possibly have been huts closely huddled together. This fort is
oval, and measures five hundred feet by two hundred and seventy.
In the same neighbourhood we also meet with plentiful marks of ancient
cultivation and with places of sepulture--all of which may without
much doubt be referred to the same period as the camps and forts. The
slopes of the hills are often marked with broad horizontal terraces,
that remind one strongly of the "lazy-beds" of the Hebrides. They are
evidently the "cultivated grounds" of the hill-men, and doubtless the
hill-slopes were selected for various reasons, chief among which would
be their retired and somewhat inaccessible position. The ease with
which they could be drained and irrigated would be another of their
recommendations; and we must bear in mind that at this early date the
low-grounds were covered with forests and morasses, and therefore not
so easily cultivated as the hill-slopes.
Here and there we notice also little conical hillocks or tumuli. They
were formerly much more numerous, and by-and-by they will doubtless
all disappear. Numbers, even within recent years, have been pulled
down, partly to clear the ground, and partly for the sake of the stones
of which they are composed. This is much to be regretted; for their
destruction simply means the obliteration of historical records, the
loss of which can never be made good. I asked a farmer what had become
of the tumuli which at one time, according to the Ordnance Survey
map, were dotted over the hill behind his house. "If it's the wee
knowes (knolls) you mean, I pu'd them down, for they were jist in the
way. There was naething o' importance below the stanes, only a wheen
worthless bits o' pottery!" And the worthy pointed to a heap of stones
behind a neighbouring "dyke," where I afterwards found some fragments
of the pottery which had been so ruthlessly demolished. These tumuli
are no doubt old burial-places, and much information concerning the
habits of our ancient predecessors might often be obtained by a careful
examination of the mounds, when it is deemed essential to remove them.
But, surely, after all, they might be spared, for they can seldom be so
very much "in the way"; and, at all events, if they must be removed,
might it not be well to communicate the fact of their approaching
demolition to some local archæological society, or to any member of the
Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, who for the sake of science would, I
feel certain, do what was possible to preserve an accurate account of
their contents?
"Standing-stones" are met with now and again, either singly or in
groups, and sometimes they form circles. It is most likely that they
were raised by the same people who made the forts and tilled the
horizontal "lazy-beds." One can only conjecture that they may have
been designed as memorial stones, to mark the place where a chief
or person of consequence was slain in battle. They may also mark
burial-places, or indicate the site of some deed of prowess or other
action or circumstance worthy of being remembered. Antiquarians at one
time considered that all these stones were relics of druidical worship;
but it is needless to say that this view has long been abandoned.
That the ancient inhabitants of the Cheviots may have had some kind
of religion is exceedingly probable, but it must have been of a very
primitive kind, not more advanced than that of the North American
Indians.
Such are some of the more notable relics of the people who lived in the
valleys of the Cheviot Hills in pre-Roman times. These valleys, as I
have said, seem to have supported a numerous population, who tilled the
slopes and probably hunted in the forests of the adjoining low-grounds.
That they lived in fear of foes is sufficiently evident from the number
of their intrenchments and fortified camps, to which they would betake
themselves whenever their enemies appeared.