LUNE. 115 



In dry seasons the channel of the stream which descends from 

 Great Colne and Gragreth to Leek and Over-burrow to join the 

 Lune, is a wild hollow of stones ; in wet seasons these are rolled 

 along by a powerful torrent. In ascending the stream we find 

 not only its actual banks, but considerable hills on its sides to be 

 composed of similar materials, drifted together by some earlier 

 forces of water. Farther upward these pebble-banks give place 

 to the native slaty rock, which has been their prolific parent, and 

 the little stream winds, falls, and rushes through these rocks 

 with a great variety of beautiful and intricate scenery. On a 

 small scale it is indeed admirable, especially when the beck is 

 reduced by long-continued drought to the few pure and per- 

 petual feeders which are its proper source. The water is then of 

 a clear and beautiful green, and is collected in little fairy pools, 

 or pouring in tiny cascades over the blue slaty rocks which it 

 has sculptured and perforated in a thousand ways. Hazel, holly, 

 ivy, mountain ash, and a hundred other humbler plants, combine 

 with the heathy ground and the lichen-grey rocks into minutely 

 beautiful pictures. 



Still farther up the valley the limestone dips into the stream 

 and gives occasion to entirely different and equally curious 

 scenes. 



The channel divides into several small branches ; one which 

 bears the most water being otherwise the least marked. Another, 

 through which in dry weather hardly a rill is seen yet even in 

 that state is almost impassable on account of its deep pools, shut 

 in by steep precipices becomes in a rainy season a wild chaos 

 of tempestuous water. This is Easgill, one of the most singular 

 little glens to be anywhere found. For several hundred yards 

 along its course through the Scar limestone, this rock is wasted 

 and perforated by the elements into a great variety of fantastic 

 shapes. 



The interior is wasted as much as the surface, and a great 

 number of caves are formed by the action of water on the great 

 interior fissures, which mostly range N.W. and S.E., as in In- 



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