34 ROUND THE YEAR 



spicuous here a steep slope of comparatively soft 

 rock (shale) surmounted by a thick bed of hard rock 

 (sandstone). If the strata were to dip ever so little 

 outwards, towards the river, the fall would be hastened. 

 I cannot say that there is any marked outward dip 

 here, for the sandstone is irregularly bedded and 

 shaken, so that no good observation can be made, but 

 there is a marked dip towards the head of the valley. 

 Did the river ever wash the base of the slope and so 

 undermine the cliffs ? I think that this was not the 

 cause. Below the hummocks of slipped shale and 

 clay comes a gentle slope, which has never been 

 disturbed or cut into by the river. It is worth notice 

 that the whole landslip is full of water. Springs 

 break out all over its surface, and the rough pastures 

 are never dry. 



No history, no tradition of the great slip is pre- 

 served ; it may have taken place, for all that we know, 

 many thousand years ago, before England was peopled 

 at all. The great lapse of time during which the sur- 

 face has remained unchanged is our chief reason for 

 living tranquilly on the scene of so great ruin. 



Near to the Cow and Calf are sandstone quarries, 

 chiefly interesting for the planing and scratching of 

 ice upon the bared surfaces of the rock. Some of 

 these ice-planes, as well as the big " day-stones " 

 which lie around, bear the rude sculptures known as 

 cup-and-ring marks. When and why they were made 

 no one knows, though antiquarian conjecture is profuse. 

 Flint chips and stone tools are occasionally picked up, 

 while circles and cairns are plentiful on the moor, the 

 relics of tribes whose name has perished. 



