116 RIVERS. 



gleborough Cave. These are partly laid open by the falling 

 away of the limestone, and give occasion to the name of Easgill 

 Kirk, which is applied to the narrow and irregular passage. As 

 usual there is a good deal of wood about the caverns. 



One of the least accessible of these openings is at the level of 

 the water, and has a fine holly growing over it. Only sure- 

 footed pedestrians should attempt to follow all the windings of 

 Leek Beck ; and Easgill Kirk, though it can be approached by a 

 carriage, requires cautious footsteps for inspection. The return 

 to Kirkby Lonsdale may be made over Casterton Low Fell. 



Near Tunstall the Lune is augmented by the Greta, which 

 brings the drainage of Whernside, Ingleborough, and Gragreth, 

 through the two remarkable dales called Kingsdale and Chapel- 

 dale. The scenery on these streams is of a simple descrip- 

 tion, for it consists of little but the dale expanded between two 

 gigantic insulated mountains, and the effect is very much de- 

 pendent on the hour of day ; early morning and late evening 

 give grand and admirable effects. In Chapeldale are the fine 

 limestone caverns of Weathercote, Gatekirk, &c., already noticed 

 (pp. 29, 30). Below all these caves the Greta appears in a regular 

 channel on the green slaty rocks of Ingleton, which are largely 

 quarried, and though they yield no fossils, their vertical cleavage, 

 under horizontal limestone scars, bands of calliard, traces of 

 felspathic dykes, and remarkable crystals of pyrites, are worthy 

 of attention. 



Kingsdale has its origin in the south-western slopes of 

 Whernside, but soon, transformed into a lonely glen of the Scar 

 limestone, continues in a very straight course, between the high 

 ridge of Gragreth and Ingleton Fells by Yorda's Cave and 

 Thornton Force, to join Chapeldale at Ingleton. At Thornton 

 Force the water falls 30 feet, from a ledge of limestone over a 

 breast of slate ; the horizontal beds of the upper part contrasting 

 curiously with the angularly meeting joints below. The botanist 

 will remark the different appearance of the herbage on the lime- 

 stone and the slate. 



