Buxton. 5 7 



the El Dorado of local naturalists. Picturesque beauty 

 and historical associations are here, as well as material 

 for the student, and no one can spend a day better than 

 in going over to Buxton and looking round. Hither 

 several times came Mary Queen of Scots, and while 

 Queen Elizabeth was sojourning at Kenilworth, Lord 

 Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester. 



The town is situated at the extremity of that mighty 

 range of hills which commences in Scotland with the 

 Cheviots, and gradually narrowing southwards, extends 

 nearly through the middle of England, and has been 

 well named the English Apennine. All the way from 

 Manchester the scenery is characterised by the large out- 

 lines, massive boldness, moorland summits, and broad 

 and basin-like valleys, which pertain to the rock of 

 which they are composed, by geologists called "mill- 

 stone-grit;" and though the grander features are, of 

 course, only realised upon the higher grounds, such as 

 were traversed by the old coach-road, plenty of evidence 

 of their existence is still palpable even to the railway- 

 traveller. On the other side of the town the limestone 

 comes close up, giving its own peculiar features to the 

 scenery, and supplying entirely different kinds of plants, 

 as well as of fossils, and of insects and shells. The 

 town itself lies in a hollow among the hills, which pro- 

 tect it from cold winds, at the same time that they give 

 great landscape beauties to the neighbourhood. Yet the 

 lowest part is no less than 896 feet above the level of 



