INTRODUCTION. 



YORKSHIRE: ITS PHYSICAL ASPECT AND 

 AVI-FAUNA. 



YORKSHIRE, the largest county in the British Isles, 

 containing an area of 3,936,242 statute acres, or 6,150 

 square miles, and situate between 53° 18' and 54° 40' N. lati- 

 tude and about 9' E. and 2° 36' W. longitude of the meridian 

 of Greenwich, is also one of the most compact in form, the most 

 varied in geological structure, soil, climate, and physical 

 aspect. 



The lands of Yorkshire rise in masses from S.E. to N.W,, 

 in a direction which corresponds with that of the age of the 

 underlying rocks, the oldest or palaeozoic formations consti- 

 tuting the high mountains of the north-west, whilst the 

 newest or tertiary deposits of Holderness occupy the opposite 

 or south-east angle. Thus a line drawn from the beach 

 at Spurn to the highest summit of Yorkshire — Mickle Fell, 

 2,596 feet — marks not only the general slope of the high 

 lands but their succession in geological time, and is moreover 

 the longest line (120 miles) that it is possible to draw within 

 the county. 



Broadly speaking, the most salient features of its physical 

 configuration are the great central depression and the flank- 

 ing masses of hills to the east and west. 



The North-Western Fells is a wild and picturesque 

 tract of mountainous country, ascending to 2,596 feet at 

 the extreme north-western angle of the county, and nowhere 

 descending to a lower elevation than about four hundred 

 feet. A district of lofty hills, thirty-six of which attain 

 an altitude of two thousand feet or more, of extensive stretches 

 of heathery moorlands, of grassy slopes and grey limestone 

 VOL. I. b 



