GEOLOGICAL EXCURSIOJT, 27 



for a rough hilly road^ (the road is rough^ and pursues' a most devious 

 course,) there is no district in England that would better repay a visit. 



Pennyghent was soon shut out by the fidge of Fountain's Fell, which 

 bounded the district on the north — on the south rose the Ryeloaf, and a 

 kind of curiously shaped hills which lay above Settle: our route lay in a 

 depression between these ranges. We crossed ridge after ridge in this 

 valley, till at length the hills opened, and after surmounting a steeper 

 ascent than usual, we looked down on the h<;ad of Airedale. To the left 

 stretched a long line of magnificent craggy cliffs, white almost as chalk; 

 their base was washed by the calm dark waters of Malham mere, which 

 lay in a hollow in the centre of the rocky plain; some fine larch woods 

 planted at their foot oft relieved and heightened the whiteness of the 

 cliffs. But except these trees and a fringe of reeds round the lake, no 

 vegetation higher than the grass could be noticed; to the south the plain 

 is cut up into long lines of low wall-like cliffs, which stretch for miles 

 across it, and descend step after step, till over the verge far down, a few 

 thick woods and glimpses of rich meadows shewed that the beautiful 

 valley of the Aire was below us. The road which twisted down amongst 

 the ruined rocks was execrable; and we were not sorry to turn out of it 

 on to a steep grassy slope, which descended to the foot of Malham Cove, 

 formed by gigantic precipices slightly concave; from the case of which 

 rises the infant Aire fed from the lake above. It is a full clear brook 

 where it rises from under the rock so gently, that but for the quick 

 stream which slips away, and a few bends in the water where it swells up, 

 no one could tell that it was so constantly and strongly flowing: the water 

 is so cold that it benumbs the hand if kept in it for a few moments. At 

 the source every stone is crowded with a beautiful little mollusk. We 

 gathered here the fine blue Jacob's Ladder, {PoUemonium coerulea,) a rare 

 plant in England. 



Leaving the Cove, and skirting the high precipices which mark the line 

 of the Craven Fault, about a mile further east we crossed a little brook, 

 and ascending its course we soon stood in a gigantic pistern of rock. The 

 passage became still narrower, till turning a corner the beautiful burn 

 of Girsdale Scar fretted and tumbled down the rocks in front of us. A 

 gigantic screen of rock must have formerly closed this fissure, behind which 

 the little stream had accumulated into a lake, till its water flowed over 

 the edge of the cliff, or down a now dry ravine on one side. The barrier 

 has been forced, and now the brook runs through a circular hole which it 

 has worn in the rocky wall. It reaches the bottom in two leaps; in the 

 first the stream passes over the edge of the circular cavity, down a little 

 channel which it has worn in the face of the rock into a small basin, full 

 of stones, round which it foams and dashes to the second leap, where, as 



