FROM THE HEART OF THE WOLDS. 193 



here and there, minor valleys are cut through them, with 

 outlets leading towards the German Ocean. Some of these, 

 vales are deep and winding, ridged with mounds like huge 

 railway embankments of almost artificial regularity ; others 

 possess a more level descent, with softly-rounded lips and sides, 

 denuded by centuries of frost and sunshine, while occasionally, 

 fronting the west, a jagged bank of chalk is exposed, over 

 which a network of ivy trails, while dwarf elders and straggling 

 ashes overshadow it. Large quarries have been opened, every 

 here and there, on the Wolds ; and few features are more 

 pleasing to an artistic eye than the cup-like hollow of such an 

 abandoned pit in autumn, with its fringe of bents waving above, 

 and its tufted poppies blazing against the setting sun, which 

 brings out the white walls in strong contrast among the sur- 

 rounding greenery, while in the moonlight these pale walls and 

 silvered heaps of debris stand like ghostly fabrics, telling of 

 other days and other men who worked within them. The 

 chief want in these verdant vales is water. When the sea tore 

 its way through the hills in the valleys we have been describing, 

 and drained off towards the east, it seems to have borne with 

 it the fresh water as well. No rivers, it will be seen by a 

 glance at the map, pour through these chalk valleys ; few or no 

 streamlets exist ; and a fortnight's dry weather attenuates the 

 few which are found into silvery threads, or in such a dry 

 season as 1868, leaves, here and there, a few glittering pools, 

 like pearls which have slipped off their string. A limestone 

 district is always a porous country ; but, on the other hand, as 

 being easily pierced by the carbonic acid gas which the rain- 

 water it imbibes holds in solution, it forms an excellent medium 

 for the formation of springs. The celebrated " blow-wells " in 

 the district round Grimsby are familiar illustrations of this 

 tendency, while every here and there on the Wolds intermittent 

 springs, resembling the "gypsies" of Yorkshire and "lavants" 

 of Hants, burst out of the hill-sides. These, as being largely 



