From Drumcovit to Learmont, the aspect of the country is cheerful, and frequently romantic. In the valley of Straid, there are beautiful gravel swells; and, as in all similar circumstances, the surface has that tumultuated appearance, which may be observed at the confluence of two rivers, or, what is the same thing, when one river empties into another. The gravelly swells of the district, where the Faur-glen* opens into the valley, are remarkable.

About Cumber church too, there are some nice gravels, both in the shape of high banks and swells. The cause of these is the entrance of the Glenrandle river into the Fahan. The same surfaces occur, where the Bond's-glen rivulet joins; and, again, near Mr. Acheson's, where the Burntolloght comes in from the other side. How high and powerful the currents have been, whose vortexes accumulated these masses, has been exemplified in their effects. At the confluence of the Burntolloght with the Fahan, these round gravel hills are not lower than goo feet above the bed of the river. In short, wherever any streamlet makes its way into this vale, the same kind of materials are disposed, in corresponding shapes.

This vale is connected with that smaller one of Bond's-glen, which is much more fertile; it is among the most favourite spots of the county, having a loamy, though very narrow bottom; lime, in many places, on its declivities, and even on the highest top of its western boundary, Sliabh-cark. As it opens to the county of Tirone, this bottom expands, into fine meadow.

I may now say, in general, of all the lands midway between the loams and the high wastes, that they comprise all the following varieties: 1. Spouty blue clay, with fragments of quartz, slate, and a shallow surface of soft peat. 2. Shingle of slate, interspersed through red ochreous powder or sand. 3. Shingle, with gravel and loam. I instance these in the climax of their value.

This had better be written " Feur," i. e. in Irish, "grass;" this is one of the terms in the combined word "Feur-ean," pronounced by the natives" Fór-an," i. e. watergrass; at present so much distinguished by the name of Fiorin. The "Feur or Forglen" signifies the narrow bottom, or glen, of grass.

Great part of this vale is turbary, most valuable to the inhabitants, and to the bleach-greens, yet giving an air of sadness and sterility. There are also large tracts occupied with natural wood; but as to the beauties, derived from these and some thriving plantations, we must reserve our observations for the present.

This vale is of no considerable breadth, reckoning all within the high arable on each declivity; from its beginning to the bridge at Enoch, it would not average, in width, three quarters of a mile. It is broadest below Ash-brook, where the river turns, almost at right angles, to accompany the course of the Clondermot stream.

Next to the Roe, and to some parts of the Mayola, I think, the Fahan displays, along its banks, from Clondermot to its opening on the coast, one of the most delightful tracts in all the county. The soil is inclined to clay, in high situations, from the entrance through the little vale of Clondermot, above Prehen, till you pass to the valley of the Foyle. In fact, these high grounds are but a succession of the shistose hills, which occupy a great portion of this county. One branch of this range, almost insulated, advancing to the south, separates the lower vale of the Fahan, with that of Clondermot, from the coast of the Foyle. It is enough to say, that the lower soils are the same in kind, but better in depth and condition.

Vale of the Roe.

In the demarcation of a valley, so much of the surface, at its opening, may be said to belong to it, as hath received the spoils brought down by its river. If there be no close ridges to confine this opening, then, so much of the greater plain, into which it discharges its waters, as lies within the extreme points of its expanded forelands, may be accounted as belonging to the vale of the river.

If a line were drawn from the headland of Benyevenagh to the rocky point above Walworth, it would measure about six miles, and would form a base to a species of irregular triangle, comprehended in part between this line and the shist ridge of Loghermore, nearly

coinciding with the barony march, as traced in the map, and ending at the foreland of Moneynieeny. Turning thence to the north-west, and taking in the source of the river Roe, in Glenshane, we are to follow, for our third line, the summits of the basalt mountains, which form the eastern barrier of this vale.

I shall proceed to describe the soils of this garden of the north. Let the reader keep in mind, that all the flat country, adjacent to the coast, has already been noticed; we are, therefore, to commence with that remarkable ridge of gravel, which extends from Castle Lecky in Magilligan, by Duncruin, round the south-western base of Benyevenagh, through Ballycastle, Artikelly, Derry-beg, Streeve, Newtown-limavady, on one side of the Roe; and on the other, by Crindle, Lomond, Broglasco, the charter-school, and to the wood of Walworth.

The regularity in shape and height, which distinguishes this range of gravel-bank, considered along with the flatness and materials of the plain below it, at first sight give notice, that this outline has been the bank of the sea, at an epocha, when the plain of Myroe was covered by its waters.

Within this bank the soil is, in variety, from a loamy to a hungry gravel. From Ardnargle to the glebe of Finlagan, there is a vein of shallow moss, covering pebbles of quartz. There is another of the same quality, from Granagh to Dowling, on the opposite bank. There is a third, still greater, above Newtown-limavady, extending towards Balteagh. These are exceptions to the general beauty and fertility of these grounds.

I have marked on the map, the jutting and retiring lines, which have been occasioned by the action of the rivers and streams, which fall into the Roe. The rivulet at Bessbrook also, and that of Ballykelly, have had their part in forming the curvings of those banks. I need scarcely repeat that, along the course of every one of these, the same effects, as have been described on other rivers, have taken place; nor need I take up the reader's time except by mentioning,

in general, that, wherever one of these waters falls into another, or opens into the greater valley, there is uniformly an eddy-formed surface, whose contents are water-rolled materials. These materials are also, in a great degree, referable to the higher strata, from which they have been torn. Thus where the waters have descended from shist regions, the stones, pebbles, and sands are of the same varieties. When a river has poured down from a region of basalt, the rubble in its banks corresponds with the basalt and its accompanying strata. In this county, the last instance is more unusual than the former, because, among the greater rivers, the Fahan is entirely shistose, in its communication, and of course in its gravel; the Roe, passing between the mountains of shist and basalt, has mixed their spoils; and even the lower Bann, though in contact only with a basalt region on both sides, yet in its upper currents, above the lake, has passed through regions of shist and granite, whose fragments I have frequently found on the mountains of basalt, 900 feet higher than the present level of that river.

As to the loamy level, or immediate holme of the Roe, it is of considerable extent, probably, on an average, about a furlong wide, and fertile in the first degree from Lomond to Newtown-limavady; it is occupied in all the varieties of culture, but chiefly in meadow. From Newtown-bridge, it is somewhat contracted; and, from the Dog-leap to the Carrick, is confined to the channel worn by its torrents through the rock; thence, to the old church above Dungiven, this level is of various dimensions, scarcely ever exceeding 100 yards.

Tracing the western side of this valley through the high swells of Daisey-hill, we find on the same level, proceeding towards Dungiven, a country rather cold and rocky, intermixed with clay and sand hills; occasionally however some good soil. There is, behind Daisey-hill, an open of undulating gravels still more elevated, from the Knockenduns by Tartnakelly and Mulkeeragh. This great extent of undulating surface lays from the opening of the Roe to that of the Ballykelly rivulet. This intermixture of gravel and cold clay takes place,

with no remarkable circumstances, along the west bank of the Roe, up to the townlands of Derry-nafla and Ovil. At this district, the gravel swells are beautifully enlarged; they seem to lay between the falling of those waters, which empty themselves into the Roe, and those which are discharged by the Fahan. The point, which marks the ending of this valley, is between Drumcovit and Terrydreen; that is to say, it is here that the valley-land is at the highest; a circumstance, which is easily perceived by adverting to what is called, the fall of the waters.

Into the Roe fall the waters of the Owen-reagh, Owen-cam, and Owen-beg; of course, the territory around them, especially towards Dungiven, is abundant in gravel. In fact it is, with some exceptions, no unproductive soil. The substrata of all this country is shist-rock, with all its varieties.

As to the high regions on the south-west bank of the Roe, they have little to distinguish them from those above Muff already described. I have indeed to mention, that under the moss, and over the shist-rocks, nearly in the highest districts, there often lies a bed of clay, in colour between yellow and brown, and mixed with this clay are pebbles of shist and quartz; a certain indication, that these altitudes have been, more or less, submitted to the action of waters.

Just at the turning of the waters, under the headland of Moneynieeny, we may reckon the top of three vallies, because, here streams are seen to pass down into the vallies of the Fahan, the Mayola, and the Roe: this last descends through the mountain towns of TamnaArran.

From Moneynieeny is continued the basalt range, forming the north-eastern barrier, by Benbradagh to Benyevenagh. I need say little more of the gravel grounds, which occur successively, as the Gelvin, the Balteagh, the Castle, the Curley, and other less considerable rivers, join themselves to the Roe. I shall also refer the reader to what is advanced, on the fossil history of this county, under its proper head. It is however indispensible to observe, that the