THE PARISH OF HALIFAX. XV. 



far as their presence is affecting the drainage of the moors. 

 But the mill-dams in the valleys, below 500 feet, as at Rish- 

 worth, Luddenden Foot, Barkisland and West Vale, shelter a 

 group of aquatic plants which are found solely in them and the 

 canal. The latter, in spite of its dirty state, is even more 

 productive. The aquatic reeds, grasses and pond weeds, which 

 flourish in stagnant or slowly moving water, are chiefly found 

 in the reach of the Calder and Hebble Navigation, from 

 Halifax to Salterhebble Docks, and Elland Park Wood ; in 

 Tag Lock, which is an abandoned portion between Elland and 

 Rastrick now stocked with fish ; and in the old cut at Norland, 

 which was intended to be the course of the canal, but was 

 abandoned for the present route, and now ends in the mill-dam 

 at the stearine works. The banks of the Rochdale Canal from 

 SoWerby Bridge to Todmorden are lined with similar vegeta- 

 tion. In view of the recent arrival and restricted area of this 

 class of aquatics, it is worth while to record that the act to 

 extend the navigation of the Calder to Salterhebble and 

 Sowerby Bridge was obtained in 1758 ; the Rochdale Canal to 

 Sowerby Bridge was opened in 1798, and the extension of the 

 Calder and Hebble Navigation from Salterhebble Bridge to 

 Bailey Hall, near to the town of Halifax was completed in 

 1828. Though both Bolton in 1775, Leyland in 1830, and 

 other botanists record species from the canal at Salterhebble, 

 the number now found, and entered in the present work, is much 

 larger. Their names are given in the next chapter, where 

 aquatic plants are considered. 



Though it is difficult to present any tangible facts, it is quite 

 evident that the surface of the land, and consequently the flora, 



is undergoing a gradual change, owing to the 

 Moors. operations of man, quite apart from the growth 



of the towns. The remains of tree trunks and 

 roots imbedded in the peat point to the conclusion that at some 

 remote period, what is now moorland was once woodland. 

 But coming to more recent times, it is clear that the moors are 

 not now so extensive as they were. At present, almost all the 

 the surface above a thousand feet, probably a third of the 

 whole area, is moorland. But around Halifax former moor- 

 land has been drained and enclosed. Swales Moor, Illingworth 

 Moor, Highroad Well Moor, Skircoat Moor are now only 

 names, and the last has become Savile Park. Greenwood's 

 map of Yorkshire, 1817, shows a Forest Dean Moor in the 

 Blackburn Valley, south of Stainland between Firth House and 



