96 



C. G. Martin, Esq., also brought two specimens of the Eieracium 

 aurantiacum, the Orange Hawkweed, which, with H. pilosella, are the only 

 Hawkweeds that send out scions from theroot. These plants, though gathered 

 growing and wildly self-sown, were from so suspicious a situation, as to be clearly 

 " garden wanderers." 



The whistle now sounded, and a general move was made for the dingle, 

 where already many of the jjarty were busy digging up roots of the oak and 

 beech fern which grew there in great abundance and luxuriance. A sharp descent 

 by a path but little prepared for such visitors as threaded its wanderings to-day, 

 led into the fine amphitheatre in front of the fall. The River Llech here falls a 

 clear hundred feet, and must be a magnificent sight when the river is full from 

 the autumn rains ; now the small stream that fell over into the pool below was 

 dashed into spray, and although the prismatic colours — the rainbow of the fall — 

 were exceedingly pretty, it could not make up for the absence of life and spirit, 

 of activity and force, of rush and roar, which are the true characteristics 

 of such grandeur in material. There is ample space behind the water for 

 visitors to pass and many ladies did so, and there, had a capital opportunity of 

 observing in perfection the beautiful fringe moss, Mnium 2nmctatu7n, the Green 

 spleeuwort, Asplenium vivide, and also other mosses with the usual abundance 

 of liver -green, Marchantia Polymorpha, and other moisture-loving specimens of 

 vegetation. 



A more promising place for a charming picturesque ramble in search of 

 plants than this lovely dingle can scarcely be imagined. The river itself affords a 

 series of cateracts and whirljiools ; that is to say, it would do so in action, but on 

 the present occasion it was a succession of clear transparent pools with over- 

 hanging rooks, and a little invisible current of water running beneath the stones 

 to connect them. Its bed could be better seen and examined now perhaps than 

 at any time. Geologists could knock out the large Calamites and other fossils 

 from its shales with an ease and comfort not often to be found. It must seldom 

 happen too, that the Water ouzels can be so readily disturbed in their most 

 secret haunts, as they were on this occasion. Time, however, admitted not of 

 any accurate research, the whistle sounding loudly three times at the foot of 

 the fall, when 



The Rev. "W. S. Simonds made some very interesting remarks on this 

 beautiful "Valley of erosion," which he explained as the result of natural causes 

 — the effect of those powerful torrents produced by the sudden thaw of snow and 

 ice under a hot summer's sun, and he pointed out the varying character of the 

 debris, the large fragments of Blouutain Limestone, of MiUstone Grit, and of Old 

 Red Sandstone, all lying mixed up together on the lower Shales of the bed of 

 the river below the Fall — as an example of mixed rocks brought within the waters 

 influence, in great part by the great weight-bearing powers of ice, and concluded 

 with some general observations on the powers of denudation now in operation 

 around us. 





