HADDINGTONSHIRE, or, as it is frequently called, EAST LOTHIAN. a county in Scotland, si tuated between 55° 47' and 56° 5' north latitude, and between 2° 25' and 3° 2' west longitude, from Greenwich. Its boundaries are the Frith of Forth and German Ocean on the north and east ; Berwick shire on the south ; and Edinburghshire, or Mid Lothian, on the west. From west to east its ex treme length is about 25 miles, and its greatest breadth from north to south 17 ; but, from the irre gularity of its boundaries, the area is computed to be only 272 square miles, or 174,080 English acres ; of which about four-fifths may be in tillage, or fit for cultivation, and the remaining fifth, consisting of hills or moorish ground, in its natural state, covered with heath and the coarser grasses. Of this last description is the greater part of the Lammermuir bills, which cross the county in a direction from south-west to north-east, where they terminate in the bold pro- ' montory of St Abb's Head.
• From this range of hills on the south, Hadding- surface. tonshire appears, when viewed from some command ing eminence at a distance, to slope gradually to the Frith of Forth and the German Ocean ; but, upon a nearer survey, the acclivity from the sea is found to consist of nearly parallel ridges, running from west to east, most of which commence near the western extremity of the county, and traverse the greater part of its length. At the termination of these ridges on the east, there is a most fertile and exten sive plain, which has the Lammermuir hills on the south, and North Berwick Law on the north. Some of the hills in the low country, though of no great elevation, are very conspicuous objects, owing to -their -rising suddenly from a flat surface, and being • exposed to view on all surrounded by grounds. North Berwick Law on the coast, 940 feet high, Traprane Law, 700, and the Garleton hills, almost in the centre, not only themselves hold a prominent place in the landscape, but afford from their heights a view of some of the richest and most beautiful scenery in Britain. The Lammermuir range on the south, which appear, when viewed from the Garleton hills, to rise in the form of a vast am phitheatre, as if to protect and shelter the lower part of the county, present in their dark and rug ged surface a striking contrast with the highly cul tivated plains below. Over these plains, from the
.same station, the eye takes in the ports of Dunbar, North Berwick, Prestonpans, and Cockenzie, with the islets of the Bass, May, and others on the coast, and the shipping on the Frith of Forth ; while nearer and all around lies an extensive tract of the most fertile land in the island, covered, if seen in a fine evening early in autumn, with rich crops of every hue, and studded with habitations of great variety, from the princely mansion, indistinctly traced through the variegated foliage of its woods, to the cottage of the peasant, sending up its slender column of smoke in the rays of the setting sun.
Almost every variety of soil known in Britain is to be found here ; but it appears from the Agricultu ral Survey that clay and loam, nearly in equal pro portions, though each of various qualities, extend over about two-thirds of the county ; yet a great deal of both descriptions is not naturally very fer tile, much of the clay, in particular, being shallow, and incumbent on a wet bottom. Tracts of moorish soil are also found interspersed among the lower grounds. The climate, though as various as the soil, is, in an agricultural point of view, perhaps the best in Scotland, especially for the growth of corn. In the eastern parts, very little rain falls during the summer months ; a circumstance to which is ascrib ed the superior quality of the grain. Here, also, harvest commences ten days earlier than upon the coast lands on the north, though on these last it is . still earlier by three weeks or a month than upon the hills. In the Lammermuir district, snow in some seasons covers the ground entirely for three months, . and lies on the north aides of the hills till after mid • summer, though they are only 13 or 14 miles from the sea ; while upon the coast it commonly melts as it falls. From December to May, the winds are chief ly from the east and north ; in summer, when the weather is dry, from the east ; and in autumn, from west to south and south-east, the last often accom panied with rain and fogs. The north-west brings storms in winter ; and from the same quarter, and also from the south-west, come the high gales which are sometimes so injurious in autumn.