xviil YORKSHIRE—PHYSICAL ASPECT. 
deep and narrow ‘cloughs’ or ravines, are, in comparison with the 
Fells of the north-west, of but slight interest to the naturalist. 
Homogeneous in their geological structure, and presenting no 
other soils than the barren and unproductive peat-laden and 
heather-covered millstone grit, they afford little variety in their 
fauna. The high moors are inhabited by grouse—more strictly 
preserved here than elsewhere—and by occasional pairs of curlew, 
golden plover, snipe, black grouse, ring ouzel, and less frequent 
still an odd pair of dunlin; the streams are the haunt of the 
dipper, the grey wagtail, and sandpiper, while the lower parts 
of the valleys are inhabited by such birds and animals as are able 
to maintain their ground against man and his works. For the 
south-western moorlands are situate between the two great coal- 
fields and manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, 
and are not only of easy access to a vast population, but within 
the direct influence of the clouds of smoke which accompany the 
manufacture of cotton upon the one side, and woollens and 
worsteds upon the other. 
The Manufacturing District.—At the foot of the south- 
western moorlands, and to the east of them, the great Yorkshire 
coalfield stretches from Leeds and Bradford to Halifax, Hudders- 
field, Wakefield, Barnsley, and Sheffield. Within this compara- 
tively limited area is congregated the great mass of the population 
of Yorkshire, for here the presence of coal and ironstone has 
determined the location of some of the world’s greatest industries ; 
and the coal-mining districts of the West Riding afford one of the 
clearest demonstrations of the transforming influence of human 
agencies upon the surface of a country. The air is laden with 
smoke above, the rivers run black and polluted below, vegetation 
is checked and stunted, animal life is scarcely able to maintain its 
ground, and fish have long been banished from rivers whose foul- 
ness and inky blackness can only be paralleled by that of the 
streams of the neighbouring county palatine of Lancaster. 
Naturally well-wooded, the district still retains that charac- 
teristic in parts, more especially in the southern portion, where 
the noble Chase of Wharncliffe, overlooking an extensive prospect 
