The river Tiviot has made a wide valley as might have been expected, in running over thole horizontal strata of marly or decaying substances; and the banks of this river declining gradually are covered with gravel and soil, and show little of the solid strata of the country.  This, however, is not the case with the Jed, which is to the southward of the Tiviot; that river, in many places, runs upon the horizontal strata, and undermines steep banks, which falling shows high and beautiful sections of the regular horizontal strata.  The little rivulets also which fall into the Jed have hollowed out deep gullies in the land, and show the uniformity of the horizontal strata.

In this manner I was disposed to look for nothing more than what I had seen among those mineral bodies, when one day, walking in the beautiful valley above the town of Jedburgh, I was surprised with the appearance of vertical strata in the bed of the river, where I was certain that the banks were composed of horizontal strata.  I was soon satisfied with regard to this phenomenon, and rejoiced at my good fortune in stumbling upon an object so interesting to the natural history of the earth, and which I had been long looking for in vain.

Here the vertical strata, similar to those that are in the bed of the Tweed, appear; and above those vertical strata, are placed the horizontal beds, which extend along the whole country.

The question which we would wish to have solved is this; if the vertical strata had been broken and erected under the superincumbent horizontal strata; or if, after the vertical strata had been broken and erected, the horizontal strata had been deposited upon the vertical strata, then forming the bottom of the sea.  That strata, which are regular and horizontal in one place, should be found bended, broken, or disordered at another, is not uncommon; it is always found more or less in all our horizontal strata.  Now, to what length this disordering operation might have been carried, among strata under others, without disturbing the order and continuity of those above, may perhaps be difficult to determine; but here, in this present case, is the greatest disturbance of the under strata, and a very great regularity among those above.  Here at least is the most difficult case of this kind to conceive, if we are to suppose that the upper strata had been deposited before those below had been broken and erected.

Let us now suppose that the under strata had been disordered at the bottom of the sea, before the superincumbent bodies were deposited; it is not to be well conceived, that the vertical strata should in that case appear to be cut off abruptly, and present their regular edges immediately under the uniformly deposited substances above.  But, in the case now under consideration, there appears the most uniform section of the vertical strata, their ends go up regularly to the horizontal deposited bodies.  Now, in whatever state the vertical